ABSTRACT
Canadian higher education (CHE) places strategic importance on internationalisation. In the last decade, there has been a steep increase in the enrolment of international students in CHE. India is leading in study permit holders. The increase in students from India, particularly Punjab, is linked to the seemingly easy route to migration post-graduation. Punjabi students (PS) are a target for mass recruitment with the often-false promise of a pathway to permanent residency. This process particularly impacts those admitted to lower-tier institutions that provide low-value credentials. While education-migration in Canada assumes that international education is a route to migration and valuable credentials for skilled jobs, PS trajectory skews towards migration, often at a high personal and professional cost. This issue was taken up by non-governmental grassroots organisations (NGOs), who seek to provide support and advocacy for PS facing barriers in education-migration. This chapter draws on interviews with grassroots NGO volunteers to enrich the limited literature on the education-migration of PS in Canada. It highlights the barriers that PS face in education-migration and calls for changes in policies and practices to support PS in this process.
