Canada is falling behind Britain, Australia and new Asian competitors such as Singapore and Malaysia in the competition for Chinese students.
New figures from the Canadian embassy in Beijing show a 35 per cent decline in visas issued to Chinese students over the past three years. This is bad news for a country where international education activities generate an estimated US$3.5 billion per year and for which China is still the biggest source of foreign students. Last year almost 6,800 new Chinese students enrolled with Canadian universities, compared to 10,577 who enrolled in the peak year 2002. In total, Canada counted a stock of 36,747 Chinese students in 2004, only just half as many as Australia with 68,857. With 47,740 Britain also registered considerably more Chinese students than Canada.
Nor are the students Canada is losing only Chinese. Since 2000, according to Citizenship and Immigration Canada, numbers from Japan, the US and France have also dropped.
