Chinese students blossoming in Canada

Yang Xinyu (centre), minister counsellor for education at the China Embassy in Canada, said the embassy's education bureau has provided assistance to enhance Chinese students' academic pursuits and safety.

Yang Xinyu, minister counsellor for education at China's embassy in Canada, said with the increase in the number of Chinese students across Canada, the Embassy's education bureaus have provided assistances to enhance their academic pursuits and safe living.

The assistance includes a 24-hour hotline for safety questions and to help to students in trouble. Chinese students associations across the country also help students adapt and prevent them from being isolated.

Yang said that English is the major challenge, even though the students passed an English-language exam before coming to Canada. Some students end up choosing the wrong major and subjects because they don't quite understand the system.

"They need to know what they are allowed and not allowed," Yang said. "If they choose a field they are not familiar with it could be a challenge, and soon they find the system will not allow them to continue if they fail repeatedly."

Geng Tan, a liberal member of Parliament with a Chinese background, came to Canada as a foreign student 20 years ago and got a PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Toronto.

He said apart from China being the biggest source of international students constituting almost one-third of all foreign students in Canada (more than 132,000 Chinese nationals held permits to study in Canada at the end of 2016), the current trend also showed Chinese students are younger, some are even enrolled in elementary schools.

"These young students who come to Canada might not know much about country and culture and the education system. This proves to be challenging and difficult for them in the first five-to-six months, especially when they have few friends," he said.