Yasmin Ara :
Currently, students aspiring to study abroad have been facing many hurdles to prove their financial solvency to get a visa from the concerned embassy. Usually, brilliant students can however manage to get admission confirmation letters for their intended academic courses, but most of the time they fail to show a satisfactory amount of bank deposit which is mostly obligatory to get the visa. Students have to show the money from their parents, and sometimes they ask for help from relatives and friends. Moreover, the duration of the bank deposits also long, in fact, not less than six months.
Being a student it is a herculean job to arrange that money. With all accounts, getting a student visa in Canada is a difficult task due to financial reason. The Canadian government has recently launched a program namely Student Direct Stream (SDS) for students from India, Vietnam, China and the Philippines. This program is in collaboration with one of the leading monetary organizations in Canada, the Scotia Bank (SB). The bank offers eligible students a chance to purchase a Guaranteed Investment Certificate (GIC) worth $ 10,000 which is a safe and secure investment having very little risk.
One does not have to worry about losing money because it is guaranteed to be refunded by the Canadian government. GIC works like a savings account in which you deposit money and earn interest. It will cover 1-year expenses of the students as well as cater to the SDS program requirements. The purpose of launching SDS is to offer good quality education to the most eligible and deserving students. All the Institutions and Colleges in Canada with DLI number are covered under the SDS program. It will help get the Canada Study Visa for overseas students under the program including Bangladesh but we are not enrolling with the GIC bank system.
If any student wants to apply through the SDS they have to deposit 7 lakhs taka in their bank account which would be refundable by the Canadian government if the student applied through the GIC bank system. They’ll also have to deposit a year’s worth of tuition fees in advance that will cover GIS and have a band 6 IELTS score. They also would not need to show 40 or 50 lakh taka bank statements. Middle class citizens can study in Canada spending (approximately) 14 lakh taka only.
Many students from impoverished backgrounds lose heart for not being able to show acceptable bank statements because of financial constrains. For instance, if a student achieved a very good GPA in secondary, higher secondary and tertiary level with excellent score in IELTS or GRE or TOFEL, unfortunately their visa refusal chance may become very high, only because of enough balance sheets. Bangladesh in this perspective though lags behind, but almost all Asian countries enjoy these amenities and therefore their student visa success rate is much higher than ours.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship in Canada (IRCC) noted that travel restrictions prevented most international students from travelling to Canada from March to October 2020 due to Covid pandemic. However, it continued to process study permit applications to the extent possible in the pandemic situation, few approvals were issued during that time frame, as “applicants wouldn’t have been allowed to travel to Canada anyways”.
Bangladesh’s young generations have all the qualities necessary to achieve a visa to study in Canada. Bangladesh is an SDS-listed country but we are not able to prepare ourselves for the facilities we need to enroll with the GIC banking system. Additionally, we are not aware that the system will also help immigration, refugees, and citizenship in Canada. Youth unemployment in Bangladesh now is a major concern; many graduates are not finding jobs despite having relevant degrees.
This is one of the most widely discussed issues, yet it is hardly considered with effective resolution. If we are fully entitled for the facilities we need to enroll with the GIC bank system; this would show the way of reducing educated unemployment problem in our country. We hope that our Ministry of Foreign Affairs will take more proactive steps in order to galvanize us to become a fully SDS and GIS listed country.
(Yasmin is a freelance writer).
