CALGARY—Alberta post-secondary officials are navigating unfamiliar territory amid diplomatic tensions that have left Saudi students in Canada with an uncertain future.
On Sunday, the Saudi government announced measures including cancelling state scholarships to its citizens studying in Canada. Global Affairs Canada statistics indicate that in 2016 there were about 15,000 Saudi Arabian students studying in either short-term or long-term Canadian academic programs.
Fifty-two of those students are set to be enrolled at the University of Calgary in the coming academic year, according to a spokesperson.
Of those, U of C vice-provost (student experience) Susan Barker said that 23 are medical residents.
Finding a way forward for the people affected is difficult, especially since students have been told they have to leave Canada by Aug. 31, according to Barker and officials at other schools.
Read more:
Nova Scotia universities stand to lose hundreds of students, millions of dollars from Saudi Arabia
“The students probably know more than we do at the moment. We’ve not seen these letters,” she said.
“Certainly, it’s something in Canada that we haven’t had to deal with in recent years ... This is an incredibly stressful time for students to leave in a relatively short period of time and notice,” she said.
Barker said the U of C has sent personal emails to each affected student outlining contacts for emotional, academic and logistical supports that are available.
She added that those supports will be needed for students navigating the process of transferring to an institution in another country, if that’s what they decide to do.
“They have to go through the immigration process all over again ... these procedures can take weeks and months depending on the country that you’re going to.”
Finding another institution that will take additional students so close to the start of a new academic term could also be “very problematic,” Barker said.
About 25 per cent of U of C’s graduate students are international students, and citizens of other countries make up about 10 per cent of the undergraduate population.
Other schools in Calgary have far fewer Saudi students. SAIT said just one Saudi student studies there on scholarship and Bow Valley College has two registered students who list Saudi Arabia as their country of origin, but a spokesperson said they are permanent residents of Canada.
Mount Royal University reports that they have just one student from Saudi Arabia enrolled for this fall, with five students considered “active,” meaning they were enrolled over the past six semesters. An ACAD spokesperson said none of their students were from Saudi Arabia.
In Edmonton, the University of Alberta reports about 130 students who are Saudi citizens at the school, while Grant MacEwan University has a single student from the country scheduled to be back for classes in the fall.
A U of A spokesperson said that while the school plans to “keep affected students informed and supported,” they won’t make further public statements “as this is a sensitive diplomatic issue with national implications.”
The leaders of the U of C’s undergraduate and graduate student groups both expressed concern about how the changes will impact students.
Graduate Students’ Association president Brit Paris said losing scholarship funding or having to switch schools is especially hard to swallow for grad students, who may be doing very specific research that can’t be replicated somewhere else.
According to information she had, 22 of the U of C’s Saudi students were in graduate programs.
“The idea is that you pick a graduate program based on the supervisor or based on the program itself,” she said. “And for grad students, this is their work ... For (a scholarship) to suddenly disappear, it’s life-altering.”
Students’ Union president Sagar Grewal said working out issues like transfer credits for anyone who may have to leave the school partway through their degree is another potential burden. They might also be facing costs they didn’t anticipate if they have to change travel or housing plans.
“There’s less than a month until the fall semester starts, so there’s not much time,” he said. “I’d say this is very much so uncharted territory.”
Barker said she spoke with Universities Canada on Thursday morning about the issues schools are now facing, but there are still unanswered questions about how to proceed.
“We know universities across the country are sharing what limited information we have,” she said. “When it comes down to it, there are some things here we have absolutely no control over. But what we can do we will do.”
With files from The Canadian Press
Clarification — Aug. 10, 2018: Twenty-three of the 52 Saudi students set to be enrolled at the University of Calgary are medical residents. An earlier version of the story stated that all of them are surgical residents.
Madeline Smith is a reporter/photographer with StarMetro Calgary. Follow her on Twitter: @meksmith
