According to an announcement made by the Canadian Government, all colleges and universities were required to provide a Covid-readiness plan to recommence operations on campus. Most universities followed up with this instruction and submitted comprehensive plans on Covid readiness.

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However, concerns are now being put forth by several parties regarding the time involved in the approval of the plans. This is mainly due to the immense pile-up of plans that are to be approved by various Government Bodies. Owing to this many institutions have been warned that they may have to wait for an unspecified period of time for approval of their plans. 

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Tina Bax, the founder of CultureWorks, highlighted that a huge amount of work is required to check if the Readiness Plan meets all the criteria and to finalize the same. Local Health Units also need to approve the readiness plans. Hence she added that the backlog in plan approval by different government bodies is inevitable.

According to data released by IRCC (Immigration, Refugees Citizenship, Canada), has released updated data on approved DLIs from Canadian Universities. This data has shown that a large number of higher education institutions from provinces like British Columbia and Ontario are still not approved.

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This data has been published at a time when Higher Education Institutions in Canada reported a loss of $220,000,000 in tuition fee revenue. Languages Canada has reported that there is a need to put more pressure on the Government to speed up the approval process so as to bring back international students on campus.

In October 2020, IRCC allowed international students to enter Canada to pursue higher studies. They had also claimed that the list of designated learning institutions will be updated regularly as soon as universities submit the Covid-19 readiness plan approved by the local provincial or territorial government.

But recently, IRCC has also released a statement warning students that they will be refused entry into the country or not be allowed to board a flight if their institution is not on the designated learning institutions list. This has caused further anxiety and stress among international students.

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