This text is part of the special section Higher Education
The proportion of international students is growing rapidly in Quebec universities and CEGEPs, making it possible to revitalize specialized programs in the regions and to help alleviate the glaring labor shortage. But the race for international students between institutions could also have a role to play in the growing commodification of higher education, according to the National Federation of Teachers of Quebec (FNEEQ).
Each year, the Cégep de Sept-Îles enters into a small seduction campaign to attract a few dozen international students, mainly from metropolitan France and French-speaking Africa.
“There is a demographic decline on the North Shore, which means that we are trying to recruit international students, energize our clientele and have a little more multiculturalism in the region, advises Kyra Robertson, advisor internationally at Cégep de Sept-Îles. They become employees for our local businesses, they go to work part-time in restaurants, shops. »
But attracting foreign students becomes particularly difficult, in a context where competition is fierce. “Students have so many choices, it’s hard to stand out when you’re in a small town 10 hours away from Montreal,” illustrates Ms.me Robertson, who explains that the Cégep nord-côtier relies on the very personalized support of students to distinguish themselves.
Responding to the labor crisis
Currently, the 7,300 international students attending one of the province’s 48 public colleges constitute about 3% of their student population, calculates Francis Brown Mastropaolo, director of international affairs for the Fédération des cégeps. “It’s a bit of an explosion of interest over the past ten years,” notes the latter.
In Quebec universities, the number of international students takes on a whole new dimension. They were just over 26,000 in 2010-2011; in 2020-2021, there were more than 45,000, according to official statistics on school attendance reported in a report on the future of French in Quebec in the context of linguistic competition between educational establishments, presented in December last by the FNEEQ.
The number of foreign students varies enormously from one institution to another, but it is particularly significant in English-speaking universities: on average, a quarter of students are of foreign origin at Concordia, McGill and Bishop’s universities. Unlike CEGEPs, for which tuition fees end up in provincial government coffers, international students can be an important source of funding for universities.
So that the 500,000 foreign students in the country can contribute to remedying the labor shortage, the federal government has also announced the temporary lifting of the ceiling of 20 hours per week that students are authorized to work outside campuses. Similarly, the provincial government has promised to reduce, from the fall of 2023, the tuition fees charged to foreign students who enroll in a French-language higher education program located in the regions. The subsidized programs are among the sectors of activity particularly suffering from labor shortages, such as information technology, engineering, health, social services or education.
A commodification of education?
“With the alignment between higher education institutions and market needs, we are in an appropriation of education to meet immediate needs, worries Caroline Quesnel, president of the FNEEQ. This one wonders in particular about the impact of such a trend on less lucrative fields, such as philosophy or the arts. The dark side of internationalization is this market vision that we see developing. »
Caroline Quesnel cites in particular the financial withdrawal of the Quebec state, as well as the deregulation of tuition fees, the amount of which has been left to the discretion of each university institution since 2019. However, the income of a university has an impact on its ability to invest in infrastructure and equipment or on its ability to hire and retain renowned researchers and professors. These factors have retroactive effects on the reputation of the establishment among international students, recalls the president of the FNEEQ. “It costs a lot more to go to McGill than to Abitibi, observes Mme quesnel. It’s a competitive, commercial logic, and it creates a lot of inequities between universities. »
“The competition is so strong that French-speaking establishments have developed an offer of courses in English in fields such as engineering or administration”, continues the president, who wonders about the effects of such trends on the linguistic balance in the province. At the same time, the number of foreign students has exploded in recent years at unsubsidized private colleges that sometimes offer their courses by distance learning – many of these students thus finding a fast track to obtaining a work permit in the province.
“There is a prospect that foreign students bring money, they are a possible workforce. It is the clientelist approach that reigns, opines Mme quesnel. Education is becoming a product you buy to get a job, a permit, and I think we’re moving more and more towards that. There are [là] a role for the state, which should increase its funding and think about the guidelines we should set ourselves. »
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