Canada's Nova Scotia to process only 12,900 study permit applications for international students this year

Nova Scotia will process only 12,900 international study permit applications for the 2024–2025 academic year as allocated by the Canadian government, according to a CBC report.

The applications will be divided among Nova Scotia's universities, community and private career colleges and language schools in the province.

Advanced Education Minister Brian Wong declared the province's allocation from Ottawa during a debate on his department's budget on Monday at Province House.


"Previous to this year, schools could submit really an infinite number of applications of international students to the federal government and sometimes the success rate of those going through for some schools was on average with the rest of Canada, and sometimes they were very low," Wong said.

The Canadian government's average for successful applications is 60 per cent.

Nova Scotia submitted 19,000 applications for the academic year that started last September. Notably, the number of applications does not directly translate to the number of students that attend schools in the province.

Canada has implemented its study permit cap, with the Trudeau government allotting approximately 292,000 permits for undergraduate and postgraduate students in 2024.

This comes after Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) imposed an overall cap on study permit applications, aiming to address what they deem as "unsustainable growth" in the international student program.

The initial cap, set at around 360,000, was intended to reduce the number of approved study permits by 35% over two years, emphasizing the need to enhance the system's integrity. However, the immigration minister may not have the statutory authority to limit the number of approved visas, only the applications processed by IRCC.