{"id":21041,"date":"2021-05-13T10:26:26","date_gmt":"2021-05-13T17:26:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=21041"},"modified":"2021-05-21T13:44:50","modified_gmt":"2021-05-21T20:44:50","slug":"we-are-all-frustrated-we-are-all-confused-international-students-concerned-as-flights-still-grounded-while-fall-semester-nears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2021\/05\/13\/we-are-all-frustrated-we-are-all-confused-international-students-concerned-as-flights-still-grounded-while-fall-semester-nears\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cWe are all frustrated. We are all confused\u201d: International students concerned as flights still grounded while fall semester nears"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u2014and Nexus<\/em> contributing writer\u2014Prajakta 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are all frustrated,\u201d she says. \u201cWe are all confused.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019t do that, because she is coming from an area that is being hit particularly hard by COVID.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want the same thing that\u2019s happening in India to happen in Canada,\u201d she says. \u201cI don\u2019t want to\u2026 risk someone else\u2019s life.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jagtap says that it adds to her confusion that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada\u00a0 (IRCC) has extended the timeline for which remote learning will count toward international students\u2019 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey extended that deadline to [the] 31st of December, 2021,\u201d she says, \u201cwhich means that they\u2019re saying that you can attend your classes until December from your home, online.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jagtap wants to know what\u2019s going to happen in September for students who cannot attend campus for a full return.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Camosun’s Interurban campus in May 2021, during COVID-19 (photo by Greg Pratt\/Nexus<\/em>).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cAre they giving us a choice? Because IRCC says something else, and the college and BC says something else,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s quite confusing, because we are allowed to study from home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Camosun vice president of education John Boraas says the college is watching the situation in India closely.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re all watching with tears because what\u2019s going on there is horrible,\u201d says Boraas. \u201cWe\u2019ll be watching India and hoping that, as much as possible, we can keep things secure for students from India.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boraas says that students coming from overseas should check with Camosun International on their travel dates to be safe.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn terms of guarantees, everyone is going to have to navigate this,\u201d says Boraas, adding that, while department deans are working to ensure schools can be flexible with student arrival time, if a student can\u2019t get back to Canada and their program is delivered in person, that student may want to explore a program that is delivered remotely.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best advice for those kinds of programs would be to suspend plans for students where they\u2019re coming to a full face-to-face class\u2026 When a program is intended to be face-to-face, there\u2019s only so much we can do,\u201d says Boraas.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not in control of much of this,\u201d says Boraas. \u201cWe\u2019re on the other side of control, just like students are. We\u2019re going to do everything we can.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jagtap says that things are difficult, and says that she usually ends up disappointed because of COVID restrictions.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy expectations are being shattered,\u201d says Jagtap. \u201cIt\u2019s just going to make me feel disappointed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jagtap is hoping there will be an option to learn remotely for the fall semester for students from India and Pakistan.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the situation remains [and] we can\u2019t do anything, I hope that they do make some arrangement, because it\u2019s not only me. There are many, many, international students in India,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s still hard to know what will happen is September, but that \u201cwe need to respect the conditions of other countries.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a responsibility of [the] college to understand and accommodate every situation and every student of the college,\u201d says Kaur. \u201cWe should have in-class and recorded lectures.\u201d (Kaur says that adding lecture recordings to D2L for students in different time zones makes things \u201creally easy,\u201d for example.)<\/p>\n

Kaur says that in a recent meeting between the CCSS and the college, the fact that Camosun doesn\u2019t have the infrastructure\u2014enough projectors and video cameras, for example\u2014to support students with both in-person and online learning came up.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t have\u2026 infrastructure for that. But we as a student society, we are trying,\u201d she says, adding that it would be far easier for international students on different time zones if material was asynchronous.<\/p>\n

Kaur says there\u2019s a lot unknown about September, but she wants the college to \u201cmake some amendments.\u201d She believes that the college will \u201cmake a decision in favour of students.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not easy for the students,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s not easy for the teachers who need to accommodate students from different time zones.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jagtap says that she hopes the college makes announcements by July if international students still can\u2019t get to Canada by then.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the situation does not get normal by then\u2014because I\u2019m told things will be normal, but I don\u2019t know\u2014I hope they announce it by July,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m planning my travel by July or August. Most students will.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boraas says the school of Business is attempting to offer a full first year online, with \u201ca descending amount\u201d through year four. Arts and Science is ensuring there is at least one first-year cohort that will be online.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 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,\u201d says Boraas. \u201cWe could fairly easily do a complete first year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boraas says that Camosun International has reported a \u201clarger than pre-COVID number of aid applications,\u201d and that around 80 percent of international students have already arrived back in Canada for the fall term. Camosun has also been \u201cworking super hard to diversify\u201d where students are coming from, which means that it won\u2019t be so reliant on getting students from one or two countries.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith each week, we\u2019re closer to clarity on where we\u2019re going to be for September,\u201d he says. \u201cI would say by July we\u2019ll have a pretty good idea.\u201d<\/p>\n

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<\/a>). It\u2019s important for the college to follow science, says Boraas.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s completely the college\u2019s job to help people to process,\u201d he says. \u201cAfter Bonnie Henry\u2019s meeting, it\u2019s time for us to spend some time thinking about it\u2026 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\u2019re intending to do is safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

While he was out for a jog, wearing his mask, on Monday morning, Boraas came across someone who wasn\u2019t wearing a mask, and he took note of his own reaction.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was quite fascinated at my response, which was a little bit of anger, a little bit of fear, you know\u2014\u2018smarten up!\u2019 I would have smiled and said \u2018Hi\u2019 two years ago. I absolutely get the fear piece,\u201d he says. \u201cSociety-wise, post-secondary-wise, the goal has to be to normalize. I don\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2014and Nexus contributing writer\u2014Prajakta 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. \u201cWe are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21042,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-webexclusive","category-features"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21041"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21043,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21041\/revisions\/21043"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}