Canada's International Education Strategy

Canada’s education system is world-renowned for the quality of its institutions and the high performance of its students. However, in an increasingly global economy and labour market, Canadian youth need to develop a range of skills. These include adaptability, fluency in more than one or two languages and inter-cultural skills—skills that are best fostered through international experiences, such as travelling, studying and working overseas.

Canada’s new International Education Strategy has three key objectives:

  • Encourage Canadian students to gain new skills through study and work abroad opportunities in key global markets, especially Asia;
  • Diversify the countries from which international students come to Canada, as well as their fields, levels of study, and location of study within Canada; and
  • Increase support for Canadian education sector institutions to help grow their export services and explore new opportunities abroad.

Read the full Strategy

Additional information

The 2018 Fall Economic Statement stated that Global Affairs Canada will work with Employment and Social Development Canada to develop a new International Education Strategy (IES) with the core rationale being “to build more skills and provide training that will help support Canada’s international trade and increase global ties”.

Budget 2019: Building on this commitment, the Government proposes to invest $147.9 million over five years, starting in 2019-2020, and $8.0 million per year ongoing.

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