{"id":23217,"date":"2022-11-02T09:00:37","date_gmt":"2022-11-02T16:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=23217"},"modified":"2022-11-03T10:13:15","modified_gmt":"2022-11-03T17:13:15","slug":"student-groups-applaud-temporary-lifting-of-work-limit-for-international-students-want-to-see-it-permanent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2022\/11\/02\/student-groups-applaud-temporary-lifting-of-work-limit-for-international-students-want-to-see-it-permanent\/","title":{"rendered":"Student groups applaud temporary lifting of work limit for international students, want to see it permanent"},"content":{"rendered":"

To combat labour shortages, the federal government has temporarily lifted the 20-hour-per-week work limit for international students from November 15, 2022 until December 31, 2023. Student groups are happy for the change as it will help lighten international students\u2019 financial burden.<\/p>\n

Camosun College Student Society (CCSS) external executive Jessie Niikoi is excited about this new opportunity for international students because of the high cost of living in Victoria.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s two sides to it, you know,\u201d says Niikoi. \u201cFirst, because of the time we\u2019re in, and how expensive everything is, this is actually a great decision because it\u2019s been so hard ever since inflation hit for students to afford things or for students to live in an affordable environment… So, this limit that\u2019s been lifted for international students is such a great decision. We\u2019re happy that this is happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The federal government has temporarily lifted the 20-hour-per-week work restriction for international students (photo by Greg Pratt\/Nexus<\/em>).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

British Columbia Federation of Students (BCFS) chairperson Melissa Chirino is also looking forward to this change after years of advocating for it. She says it\u2019s a great first step in the right direction for international students to support themselves and choose a work environment they feel safe in. However, there\u2019s still lots of work to be done.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been asking for this for years,\u201d says Chirino. \u201cIt\u2019s great, but we also know there\u2019s a lot of work that has to be done still… Now that they\u2019re able to work more than 20 hours, we know in the past, there have been some cases of international students working under the table, and then it ends with them being deported, but that part of it is no longer there, and they can support themselves in another country and feel safe doing so.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chirino says that the next step is regulating tuition fees for international students so they can afford to live in Canada without struggling to pay its high costs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe recognize the next step includes alleviating the cost of education,\u201d says Chirino. \u201cStudents, in general, are struggling with the cost of education… I think sometimes people forget that not all international students have tons of money saved up to pay for their international fees that keep increasing along with the high rent prices… Hopefully, in the future, we can decrease fees and make it more sustainable for everyone to get their education.\u201d<\/p>\n

Niikoi hopes that international students don\u2019t end up working too much; she wants them to remember they are here on study permits and need to keep their focus on school.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other side is my general fear [about] how students are going to use this and how they\u2019re going to balance their school and work life, because some people can start to focus on work more than school,\u201d says Niikoi. \u201cI just hope students are able to actually stay in school and stay on top of their classes, because it\u2019s a pilot program… So I feel like the government is going to have a look at the economic and academic impact it\u2019s going to have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even though the 20-hour-per-work-week limit is lifting for one year, the BCFS won\u2019t stop advocating to make this change permanent and also to regulate tuition costs for international students.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe will keep advocating for them to not get rid of it and make it a permanent thing,\u201d says Chirino. \u201cLike I mentioned before, we\u2019ve been advocating for this. It\u2019s been one of our asks of the government, so we\u2019re going to keep talking about this even though a change has been established, because it is temporary, and we do think that getting rid of it after this year of seeing how it goes wouldn\u2019t be helpful for anyone. So, we\u2019re going to see how it goes to make it a permanent change.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To combat labour shortages, the federal government has temporarily lifted the 20-hour-per-week work limit for international students from November 15, 2022 until December 31, 2023. Student groups are happy for the change as it will help lighten international students\u2019 financial burden. Camosun College Student Society (CCSS) external executive Jessie Niikoi is excited about this new […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23218,"comment_status":"closed","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":[13,276],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-november-2-2022"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23217","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=23217"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23219,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23217\/revisions\/23219"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}