 | From the Editor's Desk
The Shadowy Business of International Education Foreign students are lied to and exploited on every front. They're also propping up higher education as we know it.
A decade ago, few people in rural Punjab were thinking about schools in Canada. It was a cold, mysterious place that didn't hold much appeal. "But, in the past five or six years, it's become a hot topic," says Prithvi Raj, a student in India who was preparing to study overseas when he spoke with me. "Canadian education is being sold like hotcakes. You don't even have to sell it - people will just come and buy."
The product being advertised on billboards in Patiala is the same one that thousands of recruiters are hawking at education fairs in Beijing and private-school visits in Rio de Janeiro: a new version of the Canadian immigrant dream. The pitch is straightforward. First, get a student visa to study in Canada - the specific school doesn't particularly matter. After that, get a postgraduate work permit that lets you live and work in the country for up to three years. Then apply for permanent residency. When described by a seasoned recruiter, the process seems simple. Details about what to study, or the actual odds of becoming a permanent resident, aren't important. What's important is the idea that, if you run that gauntlet, you can build a life beyond anything you could dream of in a place like Bibipur. "Every student is going to these agents and saying, 'I want to go to Canada,'" says Kushandeep.
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