British Columbia is introducing new, rigorous requirements to ensure schools and institutions hosting international students meet the province's highest standard of education quality, and offer students tuition protection.

Effective June 2014, all post-secondary institutions and language schools accepting international students for study programs of longer than six months will be required to have British Columbia's Education Quality Assurance (EQA) designation. The changes will be phased in over 18 months to give schools and institutions sufficient time to acquire the necessary approval. There will also be clearly defined pathways to meet the new EQA designation requirements.

For an institution to achieve the province's new EQA designation, it must meet established quality assurance standards, including having a transparent tuition refund policy.

For non-regulated associations with established quality criteria, additional steps will be required to meet new EQA requirements.

The new standard is in response to changes to the federal government's International Student Program coming into force in June 2014, which requires all jurisdictions to develop a list of post-secondary institutions that are eligible to host international students for study programs of longer than six months. The changes are also consistent with the approach being taken by other jurisdictions across Canada.

The new standard will apply to all post-secondary institutions in the province that offer educational programming to international students who are in programs longer than six months.

British Columbia's EQA designation was established in 2009 and was the first education seal of quality in Canada. There are more than 125 institutions around the province that currently have the EQA designation, including all 25 public institutions, 55 private career-training institutions, 13 private degree granting institutions, and 32 language schools.

Government has committed to increasing by 50 per cent the number of international students by 2016. In 2011-12, 106,600 international students came to British Columbia, an increase of 13 per cent since 2009-10.

Institutions with questions about new requirements to host international students should contact the B.C. Ministry of Advanced Education at: eqa@gov.bc.ca

Media Contact:

Scott Sutherland
Communications Manager
Ministry of Advanced Education
250 952-6400