Youth Incorporated Magazine

As the new UK and USA visa policies have put Indian students in a soup, Canada has come out as a country a lot of Indians are opting for. Such students would be happy to note that Canada is finally making the visa process easier for Indian students by reducing the processing time for student visas.

Canada has introduced a processing mechanism which will be faster and simpler for students from India and three other countries. This programme will cut the processing time of visas from 60 days to 45 days.

As UK failed to include India in its new visa reform and USA continues to make it tough for foreign students to acquire a visa, this programme will allow students from India, Philippines, Vietnam and China to go through a swifter visa process provided they have the required financial resources and language understanding.

This isn’t the first time Canada has come up with such a programme as it had introduced the Student Partners Program (SPP) earlier. But, this programme didn’t have much scope as it was applicable to students applying to the 40 universities which were participating in the programme. The new programme called Student Direct Stream (SDS) will be available for students applying to any and all universities in Canada.

The eligibility criterion for this programme are that the student will have to pay the first semester tuition fee along with acquiring a guaranteed investment certificate of Canadian $ 10,000. A minimum score of 6 is required in IELTS exam. Submission of upfront medical exam confirmation document is also necessary. If all these documents are timely submitted it’ll be much easier for the authorities to verify your eligibility and move onto visa processing.

This will also pave the way for students to carry out work placements, which will allow them to interact with possible future employers, which will make acquiring a work visa and further a citizenship much easier for these students.