Students protest closure of Montreal college after provincial permit suspension

More than 100 students gathered Sunday in front of a private college in Montreal to protest its closure after its permit was not renewed by the Quebec government.

The protesters, most of them international students, say they were left in limbo when their schools announced their closure a little over a week ago.

The Collège supérieur de Montréal is among four private, subsidized colleges in the province that saw their permit suspended in recent weeks, alongside Herzing College and Veritas College of Technology in Montreal and the Collège supérieur de Sherbrooke, in Sherbrooke, Que.

Some students were weeks away from graduation when they learned they would not be able to complete their studies as planned. That was the case of Samia Chraibi, a Moroccan international student who was set to graduate from the Collège supérieur de Montréal this summer.

“I basically stay up at night crying because my papers will expire on Aug. 31,” she said. “I don’t have the right to work, and I don’t have the right to study.”

Ouazar Ghenima, an international student from Algeria studying at the Collège supérieur de Montréal, only had one exam and an internship to complete before finishing her program to become a medical secretary.

“We were all in shock, all of a sudden,” she said.

“We had made projects thinking we were almost done, that everything was fine, that we were going to move on to the next step … and now, we’re just waiting. We don’t know what to do.”

The protesters gathered in front of the private college before marching to the offices of Quebec’s immigration ministry, where they called on the provincial government to automatically transfer them to a new school where they can finish their studies.

The Quebec education ministry did not provide details on why it had not renewed the permits.

In an email, it said the decision was made in accordance with private education laws. According to the ministry, the four colleges were told that their permit was not renewed on June 30, and they had received advance warning that it might not be renewed between late March and early May.

In the days after the closure was announced, the education ministry reached out to students to offer them alternative means of completing their studies. 

But for the students interviewed by The Canadian Press, those solutions did not pan out. They say they reached out to the schools, but either did not hear back because of the summer break or were told they would only be able to enroll halfway through the fall.

With their immigration status tied to their school, many fear they won’t be able to renew their permit when it expires in a few months, or, in other cases, in as little as two weeks. 

“To get a Québec Acceptance Certificate, you need to have a school admission. And to get a study permit, you need an acceptance certificate. So the first step is admission. And that isn’t happening right now,” said Ayoub Maouini, one of the protest organizers.

In an email, the immigration ministry confirmed that international students will need to submit a new request in order to keep their status, but said the processing of their request would be adapted to the situation.

Leila Betatache and Feyrouz Chiheb, who are both from Algeria, enrolled for a second degree at the Collège supérieur de Sherbrooke the day before the school’s permit was revoked. They had only just started their classes when the school shut down, and they are now struggling to transfer their degree.

“There is no coherent, strategic plan that’s being put in place,” Betatache said. “They sell us dreams, but they have nothing to do with what’s happening on the ground.”

The women were attending the protest with their children. Chiheb said the closure has had an immense impact on her family.

“I have five children — what am I going to do? We sold everything in our country, we came here for a hope, to finish our studies and find work here,” she said.