3 Canadian colleges downs shutter abruptly; future of over 2000 Indian students in limbo

Three private colleges in the city of Montreal have declared themselves bankrupt.

Canada is one of the leading foreign education destinations for Indian students, every year thousands of Indian students go to Canada and enrol at different colleges and universities, paying a hefty sum of money as fees.

However, the future of over 2,000 Indian students is facing uncertainty as three private colleges in Canada’s Montreal city have closed down.

The three colleges are Collège de comptabilité et de secrétariat du Québec (CCSQ), College de I’Estrie (CDE) and M College. CCSQ has two campuses at Longueuil and Sherbrooke. The management of these three private colleges in the city of Montreal have declared themselves bankrupt.

As per reports some of the Indian students are learning online, while some are on study visas and studying programmes in courses like accounting, medical, computing, legal studies, management, etc.

In the court filing, the colleges blamed the Covid-19 pandemic for some of their financial troubles. The three colleges first announced long winter vacations from November 30, 2021, to January 10, 2022. Later in January, the college administration asked the students to deposit pending fees within one week. This amount of money ranged from Canadian $ 15,000 to 29,500, which come to between Rs 9 lakh and Rs 17.70 lakh, reported The Wire.

3 colleges collected 60 lakh Canadian dollars

In such a situation, the future of hundreds of students who came to study on a student visa from India is in danger. According to students, the management of three colleges of the city have fraudulently closed the college and put the future of about 1500 students at stake.

Of these 1500 students, 30 per cent students had recently started their first semester, while 70 per cent were nearing completion. The students claim that around 60 lakh Canadian dollars have been collected by the college management from Indian students. With the closure of these colleges, the students' visas are also cancelled as well as the dream of going abroad to study is also getting shattered.

A 13-member committee has been constituted for the rights of the students of the three colleges who have been cheated.

The committee will register its protest in the coming days under the banner of the Montreal Youth Students Organization through various social media platforms. In the meeting, there was a demand for the Indian ambassador to intervene and urge the Canadian government to take action against three colleges. Students are demanding to complete the studies who are in the last semester, to adjust the students of the first semester to some other college and to refund the fees of the students sitting outside Canada.

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