On April 22, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau banned all flights from India and Pakistan for 30 days. First-year Marketing post-degree diploma student—and Nexus contributing writer—Prajakta Jagtap, who is taking Camosun classes remotely from India, has delayed her plans to return to Canada to study at Camosun three times due to COVID-19 restrictions.
“We are all frustrated,” she says. “We are all confused.”
Still, Jagtap says that she recognizes the seriousness of the situation, saying that while it is theoretically possible for her to get to Canada by stopping off in another country first, she won’t do that, because she is coming from an area that is being hit particularly hard by COVID.
“I don’t want the same thing that’s happening in India to happen in Canada,” she says. “I don’t want to… risk someone else’s life.”
Jagtap says that it adds to her confusion that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has extended the timeline for which remote learning will count toward international students’ post-graduation work permits (PGWP) from April 2021 to December 31, 2021. This means that time spent studying outside Canada until December 31, 2021, counts towards a PGWP, which allows students to obtain work in Canada after graduating.
“They extended that deadline to [the] 31st of December, 2021,” she says, “which means that they’re saying that you can attend your classes until December from your home, online.”
Jagtap wants to know what’s going to happen in September for students who cannot attend campus for a full return.
“Are they giving us a choice? Because IRCC says something else, and the college and BC says something else,” she says. “It’s quite confusing, because we are allowed to study from home.”
Camosun vice president of education John Boraas says the college is watching the situation in India closely.
“We’re all watching with tears because what’s going on there is horrible,” says Boraas. “We’ll be watching India and hoping that, as much as possible, we can keep things secure for students from India.”
Boraas says that students coming from overseas should check with Camosun International on their travel dates to be safe.
“In terms of guarantees, everyone is going to have to navigate this,” says Boraas, adding that, while department deans are working to ensure schools can be flexible with student arrival time, if a student can’t get back to Canada and their program is delivered in person, that student may want to explore a program that is delivered remotely.
“The best advice for those kinds of programs would be to suspend plans for students where they’re coming to a full face-to-face class… When a program is intended to be face-to-face, there’s only so much we can do,” says Boraas.
Because the answers will differ from programs and schools, Boraas says any students who have concerns about getting here on time for classes should be in touch with deans.
“We’re not in control of much of this,” says Boraas. “We’re on the other side of control, just like students are. We’re going to do everything we can.”
Jagtap says that things are difficult, and says that she usually ends up disappointed because of COVID restrictions.
“My expectations are being shattered,” says Jagtap. “It’s just going to make me feel disappointed.”
Jagtap is hoping there will be an option to learn remotely for the fall semester for students from India and Pakistan.
“If the situation remains [and] we can’t do anything, I hope that they do make some arrangement, because it’s not only me. There are many, many, international students in India,” she says.
Camosun College Student Society (CCSS) external executive Puneet Kaur says that while the situation in India and Pakistan is getting worse (India accounted for 46 percent of all COVID-19 cases reported worldwide in the week of April 26, 2021, according to the World Health Organization), it’s still hard to know what will happen is September, but that “we need to respect the conditions of other countries.”
“It is a responsibility of [the] college to understand and accommodate every situation and every student of the college,” says Kaur. “We should have in-class and recorded lectures.” (Kaur says that adding lecture recordings to D2L for students in different time zones makes things “really easy,” for example.)
Kaur says that in a recent meeting between the CCSS and the college, the fact that Camosun doesn’t have the infrastructure—enough projectors and video cameras, for example—to support students with both in-person and online learning came up.
“They don’t have… infrastructure for that. But we as a student society, we are trying,” she says, adding that it would be far easier for international students on different time zones if material was asynchronous.
Kaur says there’s a lot unknown about September, but she wants the college to “make some amendments.” She believes that the college will “make a decision in favour of students.”
“It’s not easy for the students,” she says. “It’s not easy for the teachers who need to accommodate students from different time zones.”
Jagtap says that she hopes the college makes announcements by July if international students still can’t get to Canada by then.
“If the situation does not get normal by then—because I’m told things will be normal, but I don’t know—I hope they announce it by July,” she says. “I’m planning my travel by July or August. Most students will.”
Boraas says the school of Business is attempting to offer a full first year online, with “a descending amount” through year four. Arts and Science is ensuring there is at least one first-year cohort that will be online.
“The decision was made on the basis that we have quite a large number of first-year students, and as students make their way through, the numbers are somewhat smaller each year,” says Boraas. “We could fairly easily do a complete first year.”
Boraas says that Camosun International has reported a “larger than pre-COVID number of aid applications,” and that around 80 percent of international students have already arrived back in Canada for the fall term. Camosun has also been “working super hard to diversify” where students are coming from, which means that it won’t be so reliant on getting students from one or two countries.
“With each week, we’re closer to clarity on where we’re going to be for September,” he says. “I would say by July we’ll have a pretty good idea.”
On Monday, May 10, provincial health officer Bonnie Henry met with representatives from the post-secondary sector to go over plans for the fall (the video of this meeting is available to watch here). It’s important for the college to follow science, says Boraas.
“It’s completely the college’s job to help people to process,” he says. “After Bonnie Henry’s meeting, it’s time for us to spend some time thinking about it… I believe the most important piece is that we keep providing statements about what science is telling us. As I read the science, what we’re intending to do is safe.”
While he was out for a jog, wearing his mask, on Monday morning, Boraas came across someone who wasn’t wearing a mask, and he took note of his own reaction.
“I was quite fascinated at my response, which was a little bit of anger, a little bit of fear, you know—‘smarten up!’ I would have smiled and said ‘Hi’ two years ago. I absolutely get the fear piece,” he says. “Society-wise, post-secondary-wise, the goal has to be to normalize. I don’t want to live in a society where we all hide in our bedrooms. Getting back to being a social society is critical, especially in post-secondary education.”
The BC government recently released guidelines on a full return to campus in September. Working under the context that the vaccine rollout will be complete or nearing completion by then, the guidelines state that physical distancing does not need to be practiced in classrooms in September, that vaccinations are not mandatory to attend post-secondary in BC, and that classes can run at full capacity. Read our story on those guidelines here.