At the Sir Wilfrid Laurier English School Board, which covers the territory of Laval, the Laurentians and Lanaudière, the recruitment of students by private companies begins in pre-kindergarten. In Riverside (on the South Shore) and in English-Montreal, recruiting partners are working to attract students from primary and secondary levels.
The English Montreal School Board (EMSB) dedicates a website to recruiting international students to attend English-speaking public secondary schools. A call for tenders published in March 2024 by the EMSB indicates that the School Board is looking for “recruitment agencies” to register high school students with “basic English skills”.
This type of recruitment is possible under a provision of the Charter of the French Language which allows international students to study in Quebec in English for a maximum of three years. Since 2014, the CSEM says it has entrusted the recruitment of students – which continues through to professional training – to private companies. These receive “20% of the amount of tuition fees for the program concerned,” responded the School Board in a request for access to information.
At Sir-Wilfrid-Laurier, international students are recruited from pre-kindergarten (4-year-old kindergarten) to vocational training, according to documents submitted to recruitment agencies. In an interview, general manager Russell Copeman downplayed the importance of recruiting young students. “On the side of young people [de la prématernelle jusqu’à la fin du secondaire], we have 12 international students out of some 12,000,” he emphasizes. “It’s not us who want to go get it, it’s them who want to come and study,” he replies to explain the use of agencies at these school levels. The School Board “does not really place” emphasis on the youth sector, explains the director general. ” We put [l’accent] in the vocational training sector, because it pays off. »
Paid for professional training
Mr. Copeman estimates that 145 of the 2,000 vocational training students in his school board were recruited internationally. The majority of them (84 students) follow the “Health, assistance and nursing” program, spread over 19 months.
At $49,595, this training pays big dividends for recruitment agencies, whose commission varies between 20% and 25% of tuition fees in the professional sector. In comparison, at the elementary and secondary levels, the remuneration is equivalent to 15% of the tuition fees, which are $13,380 for ten months, according to call for tender documents published by the School Board in January 2024.
Vocational training, offered from the age of 16, is not subject to the Charter of the French Language. Last year, The duty also reported that a third (35.5%) of all allophone students in Quebec in secondary vocational training had obtained their diploma in English in 2021.
In Riverside, nearly $11,000 was donated in one year to three organizations that recruit students, through commissions ranging from 10 to 16% of tuition fees. The School Board uses partners to recruit international students at the elementary and secondary levels, for tuition fees of nearly $14,000 in 2023-2024, to which are added various contributions, for a total of nearly $26,000. $ per year. Riverside also uses the services of private companies to recruit Quebec students for vocational training. She explains her practices by her need to “respond to [la] demand » of students « in several [et] different countries around the world who ask to study outside their country.”