Conestoga College has seen a rapid rise in the number of international student admissions in recent years.
Youngsters from Asian countries make up almost half of the population of students at Conestoga College.
According to college data, Conestoga enrolled approximately 10,000 students in fall 2019 intake.
“Students choose Conestoga because we have a solid reputation and we are committed to student success,” Anita Couto, director of international enrollment and operations, said in an interview with Spoke.
The overall international graduation rate at Conestoga is 90.5 per cent, according to the Key Performance Indicator (KPI) survey for colleges in Ontario.
Conestoga is one of the biggest and the most reputed colleges with a great location in Canada, said Harshit Thakkar, a second-year information technology and business analysis (ITBA) student.
“It offers a wide variety of programs that I could choose,” said Thakkar.
The increase in the number of international students has prompted the expansion of campuses in Waterloo and Brantford; the newest campus will begin operations in January 2020 in downtown Kitchener.
The college has been able to expand the number of programs and build additional capacity to accommodate the increase and demand for international students to study at Conestoga, Couto said.
Canada is a popular destination for international students. The top five countries which make the biggest share of international students are – India, China, Korea, Vietnam, and the Philippines.
“We are working on a diversification strategy to try to provide equal access to all our programs to all countries,” said Couto.
Additionally, the college offers Strategic Global Business Management and International Business, which are mainly offered to international students because of the demand from the international population.
In contrast to college, university education is more of a theory and less of practical knowledge.
Thakkar said Conestoga focuses more on practical knowledge and implementation whereas, in his home country, education is more theoretical, just like university education here.
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