Post C30 ESL coop options

from LANGUAGE CO-OP to EXPERIENTIAL EDUCATIONPOST C-30 PROGRAM OPTIONS FOR CANADIAN LANGUAGE SCHOOLS

TABLE OF CONTENTSREPORT SUMMARY 2

ENDING LANGUAGE CO-OP EXPERIENTIAL EDUCATION: AT THE HEART OF CO-OP 3 FROM LANGUAGE CO-OP TO EXPERIENTIAL EDUCATION 4

CERTAINTY ABOUT WHAT IS POSSIBLE FARMSTAY 5 VOLUNTEER / VOLUNTERN 6 CAREER TOURS 7

THE LAST OF THE C-30S 8 INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE CANADA 9 CHANGES TO THE IEC PROGRAM 10

MANAGING LEGACY PROGRAMS

ABOUT US 11 POST-C30 PROGRAM LISTINGS 11-12 LEGACY PROGRAM LISTINGS 12-13

WORKING WITH EXPERIENCE EDUCATION

CAREER COLLEGE & UNIVERSITY PROGRAM LISTINGS 13

STUDENT SERVICES 14THE NEXT STEPS 15

1 / from LANGUAGE CO-OP to EXPERIENTIAL EDUCATION

Disclaimer: Not Legal Advice

The material in this document is intended to provide only general information and comment. Do not, under any circumstances, rely on information found in this document as legal/immigration advice. Legal matters are often complicated. For assistance with your specific legal problem or enquiry please contact your lawyer or immigration consultant.

Report Summary

f rom LANGUAGE CO-OP to EXPERIENTIAL EDUCATION /2

SUMMARY

On June 1st of this year, Immigration Canada will implement visa changes first proposed by former Minister Jason Kenney in 2012. These changes will among other things eliminate language school access to C-30 exemption work permits (also called co-op work permits, or work and study work permits). This change means that no new students will be able to register in a Language Co-Op Program after June 1st, 2014 (though registrations made before that date can still come to Canada and participate in their program). Language Co-Op Programs as they have existed are effectively over.

Our company, Experience Education, is an expert on co-op, practicum, and other experiential education programs. We have worked with government and industry regulators and have developed a package of new programs that take advantage of other visa options for language schools.

Schools have had to deal with a lot of uncertainty since the changes were first announced. Our research, and these new visa / visa-free program options give schools the certainty they have been looking for.

New work experience options include:

Farmstay (no work permit required) Casual Volunteer (no work permit required) Full-Time Volunteer [what we call ‘Voluntern’] (C50 work permit required) Career Tours (no work permit required)

As for existing ‘legacy’ programs (the old Language Co-Op Programs), while these can still operate using International Experience Canada work permits, and SWAP permits, their volume will be reduced, making in-house program management more costly and reducing program quality. However outsourcing these programs to a third party, like Experience Education, can help you overcome this challenge.

New work experience programs are available for language schools

With C-30 Language Co-Op Programs ending, what work experience options are still available for language schools?


ENDING LANGUAGE CO-OP PROGRAMS

Experiential education is at the heart of co-opLanguage Co-Op Programs refer to a suite of programs including: paid service sector jobs, unpaid professional internships, paid professional internships, and self placements.

With changes to federal immigration regulations, language school access to C-30 exemption work permits will be stopped. This means most Language Co-Op Programs will be swept away, with final ESL sales done on them by June 1st, 2014.

They are not closed entirely, language school student access to International Experience Canada programs is explicitly allowed, as is access to work programs regulated by the Temporary Foreign Worker Office (rather than the International Student Program Office) at CIC. On balance, though, the greatest part of these programs are gone.

However, at the heart of Language Co-Op is the concept of ‘experiential education’ - that is to say, learning by doing, learning by seeing. And while the C-30’s are gone, experiential forms of education will remain. They will not be identical to what was there before, but they will be more stable, more controlled, more educationally valid.

It’s not all bad. Other options are available.

Language Co-Op Programs were designed to give students the opportunity to practice their English or French in a real ‘social context’. We at EE have done a research review and prepared a policy paper for Languages Canada on social context, and it is in our view a valid concept - it’s unfortunate that the federal government chose not to recognize that.

Language Co-Op had a few particularities:

All of these particularities will go as we transition from language co-op programs to experiential education programs.

There will be no more C30 visas, instead new programs will be largely visa free, or will use C50 visas (which are discussed later in this document). The 50:50 rule is gone too, with the length of the experiential component of their educational program unconnected to studies. Insurance, reporting, regulatory compliance, all of these considerations also go out the door.

Instead what we are left with are a suite of programs whose shape is determined by federal and provincial law, and that can be done independent of studies.

Transitioning from one type of program to another means learning about how they work, training agents on it, developing rules so that they build up enough study weeks to make such programs profitable, and lastly - creating vetting and monitoring tools to ensure that these new placements are legal, safe, and educational.

For schools running their programs in-house, the cost for transition could be high, and the potential requirements from private or government regulators are uncer-tain. For schools outsourcing programs however, the transition costs are almost non-existent, and private industry regulations do not apply.


A C30 co-op work permit was issued with the school listed as the employer Programs must be 50:50, i.e. no more than 50% of the total program can be made up of work experienceWork experience must be connected to studies in some demonstrable waySchools were responsible for workplace insurance for the student during their unpaid internships

From Language Co-Op to Experiential Education

Since first seeing the CIC co-op visa changes coming, Experience Education has been in conversation with government, and with other players in the industry. We have used this time to test different programs, to run them by government, and to build the infrastructure to operate them at high volume.

We have come up with 3 types of new programs that can operate with absolute reliability and certainty. None of these programs require approval by government or industry regulators, they are programs that schools can offer as tourism options - just as they offer trips to Whistler or Niagara Falls.

Farmstay

Farmstay is unpaid work experience on a farm. Students go to a farm outside of a major city and receive room and board in exchange for a small amount of daily work helping out around the farm. Farmstays are an established program, but only recently were the rules for them clarified.

The January, 2014 revision of Immigration Canada’s Foreign Worker Manual elaborates on the conditions for a farmstay placement to be visa free:


… if a tourist wishes to stay on a family farm and work part time just for room and board for a short period (i.e., one to four weeks), this person would not be considered a worker. Work on a farm that is expected to extend beyond four weeks would require a work permit.

Source: Page 29 http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/manuals/fw/fw01-eng.pdf

Three new programs to give language school students the opportunity to improve their skills in a real social context

CERTAINTY ABOUT WHAT IS POSSIBLEExperience Education has had talks with regulators and governmentin order to develop a set of unique, secure, and sustainableexperiential education programs for language schools.

CIC goes on to set a 3-part test for whether or not a farmstay can be done visa free:

Is the [farmstay] incidental for the main reason for entering Canada? Is this a commercial, or a non-commercial (family) farm? How many weeks is the farmstay?

A person can come to Canada for farmstay if it’s not the main reason they are in the country, if the farm is verifiably non-commercial, and if the farmstay does not exceed 4 weeks.

This type of program, like all of the post-C30 programs, does not require a study period, but the presence of a study period does help to establish part 1 of the 3-part test. For the other parts, careful screening, selection, and monitoring of farmstays can help people pass the other 2 parts of the test. This is something the Experience Education guarantees for all of our farmstay participants.

VolunteerVolunteer is a misleadingly complex word - common sense says that it means a person who, for no remuneration, offers of their free will, to help at an organiza-tion. When it comes to Immigration Canada though, volunteer is ill-defined - because of this, and because of its clash with the common-sense understanding of the word, there is a lot of confusion about volunteering.

There are two broad types of volunteering that we look at for the post-C30 environment:

1. Unstructured, casual volunteering. This is very short term volunteering - things like volunteering to be a ticket taker at a film festival, to be a wayfinder at the children’s festival, to help hand out bread at a soup kitchen. This type of volun-teering isn’t structured, it isn’t regular, the participant doesn’t have a regular work space or schedule. It is casual. When the government or industry regulators say that students can do volunteering without a work permit, this is the type of volunteering they are referring to. It is not the type of volunteering that is condu-cive to being packaged into a program.

2. Structured, project-based volunteering. This is longer-term volunteering - things like working on a 6-week research project at the head office of an environ-mental charity, or spending 12 weeks in the wilderness at a bear rescue centre, helping with operations. These are scheduled shifts of volunteering, students have a regular workspace, and duties. This type of volunteering requires a C50 work permit. If a student comes through the border and says they’re coming to do a volunteer program, the C50 permit is what Immigration expects to see. In order to distinguish this type of serious, full-time volunteering from the casual and unstruc-tured type, EE has branded our volunteer program as ‘Voluntern’.

Type-2 Volunteering (Voluntern) requires the C50-exemption Charity Work Permit. From Canada’s FW1 ‘Foreign Worker Manual’:


Canadian interests: Charitable or religious work R205(d), C50R205(d) LMO exemption applies to charitable or religious workers who are carrying out duties for a Canadian religious or charitable organiza-tion [...] A charitable worker is usually taking a fulltime position, and may be engaging in a competitive activity; an activity which meets the

Please note that the C50 is not part of the International Student Program, and recent changes to that program have no effect on the C50. The C50 is not a 50:50 visa, no study component is required, meaning that students can study for any length of time (including no studies), and still be able to take part in a C50 Voluntern placement. Volunteering is possible, it requires an easily obtainable C50 permit. This permit must be got before the student comes to Canada - meaning that the placement must be arranged before the student leaves their home country. When industry regulators and government talk about volunteering without a permit, they do not refer to these types of volunteer *programs,* instead they mean casual volunteer-ing like at a marathon handing out water. If it’s full-time or anything close to it, itwould likely require a work permit.

Career Tours and Observation

Workplace tours have been a less utilised part of work experience programs, but in many ways they’re one of the more educationally valid forms. In a Career Tour, a student or a group of students would visit a company, listen to a talk by a professional at that company, take a tour, ask questions, and then return to class and write a report.

Some tours, for example those at restaurants, may even involve the students doing some hands on tasks like helping prepare the meal they are going to eat.

Career tours as described above have never required a permit, and will not in the foreseeable future. They are a good and stable type of program. Using these as a starting point, EE has talked with the Temporary Foreign Worker Office in Montreal and has looked at more expansive forms of workplace observation. We have received written assurance, that some of these more expansive forms of observation can be done without a permit.

This confirmation from CIC mirrors language used on their volunteer and work webpage which describes the conditions required for a student to volunteer visa free:

Additionally this mirrors information provided to EE in private by the head of CIC’s International Student Program. In summary: no work permit or study permit required.

definition of 'work' even though there may be nominal remuneration.

Source: 4 www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/manuals/fw/fw01eng.pdf

… the foreigner that meets scenario one [Career Tours] does not need a work permit as there will be no production component and no wages earned thus no competition with Canadian or Permanent resident jobs opportunities.

Volunteer activities that are not “work” and do not require a work permit: unremunerated (i.e. unpaid) observation of the functioning of a given work environment or occupation. In some cases, minor tasks may be performed (such as clerical chores), however you will not make a significant contribution to the productivity of the enterprise.

Source: www.cic.gc.ca/english/study/institutions/workvolunteer.asp


MANAGING LEGACY PROGRAMSManaging remaining C-30 bookings and operating old Language Co-Op Programs usingInternational Experience Canada visas

Even though new bookings for C-30 Language Co-Op Programs end on June 1st, there are still many students on the books who registered before that date and will receive a visa that will allow them to participate in co-op program. These remaining C-30 students will continue to arrive over the next 18 months. The question is, how to manage them?

Schools with in-house Language Co-Op Program management may find that as co-op student numbers decline, these programs may become more expensive to operate. There will be fewer student fees available to pay for your staff. Schools may also notice that as numbers decrease they will see a greater attrition in their host company lists, meaning that it will be even more costly and time consuming to place a student than ever before.

Economies of Scale

Experience Education has 2 dozen partner schools, and through the wind-down of C-30 Language Co-Op programs, EE will continue to have a significant volume of students. Many of these students will be Language Co-Op, many more wil be in our career college, International Experience Canada (IEC), and university programs. The combined numbers of these students allows us to maintain a low host company attrition rate, and to keep costs as low as possible.

Experience Education places more than a thousand students a year, making it one of the largest co-op programs in Canada - on par with many major universites. This size creates economies of scale that in-house co-op programs can’t match.

As C-30 Language Co-Op Programs close and the final students come through, outsourcing programs to EE will allow schools to take advantage of these economies of scale, raising the quality of school programs, while at the same time keeping costs low - even as in-house managed programs become unaffordable.

The Last of the C-30s



Continuing Language Co-Op Programs using the International Experience Canada Program

People tend to think of the Federal Government as a senior or parent level of government, and the Provincial Governments as junior/child levels of government. This type of thinking is wrong. The Federal and Provincial Governments share sovereignty, with the provinces supreme in some areas and the federal govern-ment supreme in others. For example, the federal government is supreme in immigration, while the provinces are supreme in education.

It seems like an airy academic point, but what it means for Language Schools is that the federal government can’t dictate their curriculum. The Feds, can cut off one type of visa or another - but they can’t tell a school that they can’t run a co-op program. A province can tell a language school they can’t run a co-op program, but none have done so as of yet.

This means that the only obstacle to running a Language Co-Op program is student access to work permits. Previously students had accessed work permits using the C-30 visa. With that gone, these programs mostly need to close - but not entirely.

The old Language Co-Op programs can continue to operate to a limited extent using International Experience Canada (IEC) visas. These 55,000 work permits are un-connected to studies, and give foreign students from designated countries the opportunity to work in Canada for between 6 months and 2 years (depending on the country and IEC type.

If a school has an applicant with an IEC permit, they can join any of the old Language Co-Op programs with no obstacles whatsoever.

Interntational Experience Canada (C21) Visas for Beginners

IEC visas are a class of visas including: International Co-Op, Career Development, and Working Holiday. These visas are restricted to the following countries only:

IEC visas are not available year-round. Instead they open between November and March, depending on the country, and in some cases the quota (even if very large) is exhausted in a matter of days.

AustraliaAustriaBelgiumChileCosta RicaCroatiaCzech RepublicDenmarkEstoniaFranceGermanyGreeceHong KongIrelandItalyJapan

KoreaLatviaLithuaniaMexicoNetherlandsNew ZealandNorwayPolandSlovakiaSloveniaSpainSwedenSwitzerlandTaiwanUkraineUnited Kingdom

IEC visas are very different from the old C-30’s. Among other things, students don’t need to study at a Canadian school to qualify for one. Depending on the IEC visa type, it could be employer specific (meaning the student needs to be placed before they arrive in Canada - a service Experience Education provides), or it could be totally open.

Because these visas are open or tied to an employer, self-placement programs cannot work with them. Instead, all IEC students should be directed into guaran-teed placement programs such as unpaid internship, and paid casual work.

For more information about the International Experience Canada program, including visa quotas, opening dates, visa types per country, and age limits, please visit: http://www.international.gc.ca/experience/index.aspx

Exciting Upcoming Changes to the IEC Program

In 2013, the IEC program moved from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Ministry of Immigration. The IEC now appears to be run by the same office that controls the International Student Program (ISP). The move and the sweeping changes to the ISP have delayed some exciting upcoming changes to the IEC program. But Experience Education’s sales office in Paris has been in regular contact with the Canadian embassy in France and has received word that these changes are still going ahead - and we have been given an outline of what the changes will look like.

In the near future, Immigration Canada will create a class of ‘Recognized Organi-zations’. Currently CIC has 2 Recognized Organizations - SWAP, and Go International (a company owned by Tamwood College). These Recognized Organizations have access to an exclusive pool of visas that do not appear to be open to the general public - in order to access these visas, a student must apply through them.

The Canadian Embassy in Paris has told Experience Education that Recognized Organization status will be given to companies which send students abroad as well as receive them. This could mean that Language Schools which have an international presence and the ability to send Canadians overseas to work and study, could gain access to an exclusive quota of IEC work permits.

This is still not 100% certain, but has the posibility for creating a very intersting and exciting opportunity for Language Schools.

LANGUAGE CO-OP to EXPERIENTIAL EDUCATION /10

WORKING WITH

EXPERIENCE EDUCATIONContinuing program management for Language Co-Op legacy programsas well as new post-C-30 experiential education programs

The Experiential Education Experts Experience Education specializes in the development and management of all internship, co-op, practicum, and experiential education programs. We manage suites of programs for universities, career colleges, language schools, and International Experience Canada Program participants.

Our company operates from offices in Vancouver, Montreal and New York, and services these cities, as well as Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary, and Victoria. We have Canada’s largest private team, and are the only national co-op program organizer, operating in both official langauges.

EE is here for language schools to affordably and ably manage their legacy Language Co-Op Programs, as well as to offer post C-30 experiential education programs to meet every available visa opening. We have been a leader in industry regulation and have been working hard for the last 2 years to develop and test secure programs that can operate outside of CIC’s International Student Program.

In order to serve our language school partners we have created Farmstay, Voluntern, and Career Tour Programs that schools can access with certainty about the visa requirements, with no administrative overhead - and that will give their clients a high quality, educationally valid program at a very low cost.

EE Program Options - Post-C30 - Experiential Education Programs

Post C-30 programs are designed to operate after the C-30 visa is closed on June 1st. These are new, sustainable, reliable programs that schools can operate with certainty that the visas will not close, or not be limited in any way.

FarmstayThis program gives students the opporunity to work on a farm and experience Canadian nature at its most real. Students are placed on farms for between 2 and 4 weeks, and receive free room and board in excha-


-nge for between 16 and 30 hours per week of unpaid volunteer help around the farm. Farmstay is available year round and includes guaranteed placement in BC, Alberta, Ontario, and Quebec, and one way in-province transportation to farmstay. No work permit required.

VolunternUnpaid, internship-style placements for 4-24 weeks at a federally registered charity in Vancouver, Toronto, or Montreal. Students work full time on a project, improve their English in a real social context, and also give back to the community. The Voluntern is not a 50:50 program, meaning students can volunteer for longer than they study. C50 work permit required.

Career ToursCareer tours are designed for groups or individuals and can be done outside of studies, or fully integrated into a class. During a tour, students spend a half day or full day visiting a company, attending a lecture by a professional at that company about their career and their industry, and in some cases, even try some hands on work (or in the case of the Culinary Tour, a gourmet meal). Package tours are available in arts and culture, business, culinary arts, engineering, nature and environment, and sports management. Customized tours are also available.

More intensive, ‘recurring’ tours are available for individuals. In these recurring tours, students will visit the same company for half-day observations, three days per week for 4 weeks. During these observations they will complete observation tasks and reports, as well as help out on some light clerical duties.

Career Tours are available in Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal. No work permit required.

Language Co-Op (”Legacy”) Programs

These programs were designed with the C-30 in mind. They continue to operate and to serve students who obtained C-30 permits before the June 1st visa closure, and students who are coming to Canada on International Experience Canada permits.

Casual Work Experience ProgramGuaranteed paid casual job placements in retail or hospitality. Students improve their English while speaking with their Canadian co-workers. Available to students with C-30 work permits, or IEC working holiday permits. Students without a visa, should consider Farmstay.

Guided Self-Placement ProgramStudents in self-placement are provided with resume preparation assistance, interview preparation, placement and job search counselling, ongoing monitoring and troubleshooting support, and C-30 compliance documentation. Available to students with C-30 work permits, or IEC working holiday permits.

Student Internship ProgramUnpaid professional internship in dozens of fields. Students are placed with a host company for 4 to 24 weeks, depending on the length of studies. They intern full-time and improve their English by talking with co-workers. Available to students with C-30 work permits, or IEC working holiday or international co-op permits. Students without access to these visas should consider Voluntern or Career Tours.


Career Development ProgramThe CDP is Experience Education’s signature program. In CDP, students are placed in a stipend-paid professional internship for 20-36 weeks (depending on the length of their studies). In their paid professional internship, students rapidly improve their English, while building their resume in one of 6 different fields. Available to students with a C-30 visa, or International Experience Canada working holiday or international co-op permit. Students without access to these should consider Voluntern or Career Tours.

Career College and University Programs

While the C30 program has closed for language schools, numerous new program options have come available for career college and university students. EE has developed and expanded programs to provide these new students with suitable work experience opportunities.

Student Practicum ProgramSimilar to our Language Co-Op student internship program, the SPP places students in full or part-time unpaid professional practicums connected to their program of studies. Placements are available in dozens of fields and can be arranged on very short notice. Career College and university students need a study permit from a designated school to do their placements during the semester. To do a full semester, full-time placement, students need a C-30 visa (which continue to be available for higher ed).

Career Development Practicum ProgramOpen to students who have completed a previous practicum, the CDPP is a stipend-paid practicum. This program is the next step after a student has completed an unpaid practicum. Similar in structure to the SPP, students in the CDPP take a full semester break to intern in their field of studies, while earning a small stipend sufficient to cover many of their expenses. Students need a study permit from a designated school as well as a C-30 visa in order to take part in this program.

Co-Op ProgramThis program is a fully-paid full semester program, placing students in regular entry level jobs that are connected to their studies. Co-Op differs from CDPP in that it is paid at minimum wage or above (as opposed to a stipend), but also in that while CDPP is a structured practicum - meaning students would be doing more senior work, Co-Op is entry-level and allows students to experience what they would really do in their first job. Students need a study permit from a designated school as well as a C-30 visa in order to take part in this program.

Graduate Internship ProgramAfter completing their studies at a career college or university, graduates often have a difficult time finding their first job. Youth unempoyment is high and many gradu-ates end up working in service jobs outisde of their fields. The Graduate Internship Program is for these people. It’s for after they graduate, placing them in a fully-paid internship - one in their field, that will help them kick start their careers. Unlike other EE programs where a participation fee is charged to the school, and likely passed on to the student, in the GIP, all fees are paid by the host company, with no fees paid by the student.


STUDENT SUPPORT SERVICESPreparation, monitoring, troubleshooting and supportservices for students in all programs

Services Designed to Help Students SucceedExperience Education has a student services team spread across North America which is dedicated to providing students with the highest quality of support services.

These services include: placement counselling - helping students set internship and program goals; resume preparation; one-to-one interview preparation; ongoing reporting and monitoring throughout the placement; regular site visits during the placement; and transparent troubleshooting and easily accesssible re-placement procedures.

Experience Education programs have a 90%+ student satisfaction rate (students who rate their programs as good or excellent) and we work hard to keep these numbers high, and move them higher. We are student-focused and do our best to see every situation from the student’s point of view.

Photo taken during a student services host company site visit


Next Steps

It is our hope that this document will help your school get a better understanding of what types of programs are possible, now that the C-30 visa is closing. A lot of schools think that this is an industry apocalypse, but an objective view shows that there are many opportunities for forward-thinking schools.

Our new experiential programs: Farmstay, Voluntern, and Career Tours, are in many ways, easier to operate than the old C30 programs. While they may be difficult and expensive to run in-house, Experience Education has the ability to help you run these programs for as little as $250 per student. This does not mean that these programs cannot be run in-house - they most certainly can. However in order to meet the deadline for new 2015 brochures, to get the word out to worried agents, and to be the first into the new post C-30 market, we believe that outsourcing these programs to Experience Education is the best option.

Service Agreements

The next step in the process if you would like to work with EE is to contact us and ask us to draft a Service Agreement. Service Agreements give schools pricing, confict resolution procedures, and program terms and conditions.

EE believes in keeping things as simple as possible - for instance each EE program has a simple one-step application process with the bare minimum of documentation required. When it comes to our Service Agreements, we have a 1-day turn around in getting these to you, they’re in plain English, easy to understand, and will help you get started right away.

Contact Us

EE school partnerships are managed by our company director, Robert Jago. Robert is based out of our Montreal office and can be reached via email at: [email protected] or by phone at: 1.877.795.8403 (ext. 703).


470 GRANVILLE STREET, 917HEAD OFF ICE:

VANCOUVER, BC, V6C 1V5

T. 1 .877 .795 .8403 | CONTACT@EXPER IENCEEDUCAT ION.CA | WWW.EXPER IENCEEDUCAT ION.CA

Copyright Experience Education Internship Provides Inc. 2014

Post C30 ESL coop options

Documents

Transcript of Post C30 ESL coop options