Canadian Colleges & Institutes - Responding to the Needs of Immigrants

Due to limited resources, colleges and institutes are dependent on immigrant settlement organizations to provide socio-cultural adaptation types of services. However, the financial viability of these organizations is often dependent on federal government funding forcing such organizations to pigeon hole their programs in accordance with federal government priorities.

Colleges and institutes face financial, time and physical limitations to introducing new training programs and assessment, advisory and counseling services to meet the specific needs of immigrants.
Funding structures at colleges and institutes become barriers in that they are often based on keeping students in the classroom, whereas immigrants need to get out of the classroom and into the workforce as quickly as possible.

Due to limited resources and funding, even colleges and institutes with significant programs and services for immigrants, are finding it difficult to promote these programs and services to the immigrant community.
Community agencies are not always aware of the range of programs and services offered by colleges and institutes. These institutions need to do a better job of promoting their programs and services to these agencies to that they can better inform their client base.
Although the websites of colleges’/institutes’ website can be effective promotional tools, some institutions have found it difficult to provide relevant and specific information on immigrant programs and services. The Internet now contains so much information that it can be difficult for immigrants to sift through it and understand the level of service they could access at a college or institute.

Colleges and institutes serving rural and remote communities need to be involved in government initiatives and strategies to facilitate the integration of immigrants into rural communities.

LINC and equivalent-type programs do not typically go to a high enough level in relation to the Canadian Language Benchmarks, to enable new Canadians to enter college/institute career programs nor do they provide sufficient occupation-specific language training that enables participants to function comfortably in the workplace.
There is a significant gap between the levels of ESL training offered through federally-funded LINC- type programs and the Education for Academic Purposes (EAP) programs students need in order to function comfortably in career and academic programs at colleges/institutes and universities.
Some immigrant students graduating from Canadian high schools may require ESL or EAP upgrading, however they tend to resist the ESL “label” as they do not view themselves as ESL students.