INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION
By Roger Bartholomew

Roger Bartholomew spends his life talking with students - both as a teacher and as a counselor. His position as president of International Education Specialists, Chairman of Southville Foreign University and Director/Teacher at Southville International School all involve listening to students and parents and advising them on their studies and careers. He is a frequent speaker in schools, colleges, universities, public forums and focus groups. He can be reached at rogerb@inter-ed.com.

CANADA – Room for Everyone!

In 1988 Air Canada – who is those days flew into the Philippines – asked me to go to Canada to explore opportunities for students from the Philippines to study there. They promised me an air ticket, which they duly supplied, and accommodation, which they duly didn’t! I landed in Vancouver in April, 2oC, and horizontal sleet coming into my face. Everyone told me that the weather had been beautiful the week before! My first port of call was University of British Columbia, then Simon Fraser University and then Columbia College – all of which made me realize that Canadian education was one of the best kept secrets in the Philippines. It was top quality, inexpensive (then) and largely inaccessible to Philippine students as they neither recognized our high school or our degree qualifications.

20 years of trying to attract fee paying students has changed that – and the low costs – and now Canada is fairly open to students from here, except for Masters degrees as they still view our degree programs with some suspicion. But what has really changed is the opportunity after graduation. For example: take a Philippine student with a BSBA – Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) will take them into the final year of a Bachelors degree program, one year of academic study and one year of mandatory paid internship. After graduation the student is given a two year work permit and after one year of work may apply for residency in Canada. Seneca College in Toronto will take them into a Graduate diploma with the same result.

Keeping my ear to the ground, I hear a lot of stories of people who applied for migration to Canada and after 4 – 5 years of waiting, got turned down – usually because the rules had changed over that period and now they no longer qualify. I checked out the skills migration program and discovered that there are now only 38 skills that Canada wants and these DO NOT include playing ice-hockey and drinking beer – or investment banking! So the only sure-fire way into Canada for most people, is to have a job offer. Then everything is processed quickly and efficiently with no problems.

I can hear pennies dropping and mice being clicked as you are about to move onto another web site…. but wait a minute, the story has not quite finished.  Surprisingly, especially during the current economic climate, one of the professional Canadian migration companies in Manila, Canadian Professional Immigration Services, Inc. (CPIS), has many job offers available from highly reputable companies, mostly located in Vancouver, and with a few in Alberta and Manitoba. These give great opportunities for two types of people. Firstly the young individual or young couple who want to move NOW and are prepared to start work immediately upon arrival. Secondly, this system works really well for someone in their late forties or early fifties who wants to move their whole family to Canada to take advantage of free education for their children (high school and university) and free health care for the whole family + a job which they have the option to accept when they arrive.

A chat with Dale Thompson convinced me that this program was on the level and I agreed to do a public talk with him at the AIM Conference Center on April 25th from 2.00pm – 6.00pm. he is going to talk about Canada, migration, work opportunities and job offers, and I am going to talk about education in Canada. This will be a completely free session which you can attend by pre-registering (guarantees you a seat!) and sending me an e-mail to ccpc@inter-ed.com with your name, age, contact no and brief academic/employment record. This session will be interesting and highly informative and may be exactly the opportunity you have been looking for if Canada is your country of choice.

Canada – where the locals are really friendly

In the meantime, as graduation season is upon us, a quick reminder for all UP engineering graduates licensed or otherwise, and all other engineering graduates with licenses and one year’s work experience – Australia wants you and we can have you there as permanent residents in just a matter of months with only a very small cost involved. Again contact me on ccpc@inter-ed.com to set up an appointment for a free counseling and information session.