OCTOBER 10, 2024 VOLUME 118 ISSUE 3
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THE DRIVING DILEMMA: How nursing students struggle to access placements OM SHANBHAG SENIOR NEWS EDITOR
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t 5 a.m., Paula Umeh wakes up and puts on the scrubs she laid out the night before. She waits for her Uber in the dark. It will be dark again when she returns home at 8 p.m.. The $63 ride takes 45 minutes and drops Umeh off at St. Thomas Elgin General Hospital in St. Thomas, Ont., a small city outside London. There, she is scheduled to assist a working nurse until 7 p.m.. This was Umeh’s reality last year as a third-year student in Western University’s collaborative nursing program. Like all her peers, she must complete a series of placements in hospitals and care homes before graduating. The professional practice placements are an integral part of the nursing program, with hands-on experience for students to refine their “knowledge and clinical judgement,” according to Western’s website.
Umeh is now a fourth-year student, and while fourth-year students still complete placements, they differ in duration and placement types. Umeh knew she could be placed outside London, and she expected to drive to her placements. But when a mix-up left her uninsured, she was forced to resort to rideshare apps. After a few uber trips, Umeh made a deal with one of her drivers, directly paying $30 cash when she needed a ride — roughly four times a week for a three-week placement period. These kinds of makeshift transportation solutions are not uncommon for nursing students. Despite the importance of these placements to Western’s nursing education program, the university does not offer any support to students who may be struggling with their transportation needs prior to their placements — which some students say can pose a major challenge.
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Federal cap jeopardizes Western’s plans: Shepard CHIRAG K SINGHAL NEWS EDITOR
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estern president Alan Shepard said the school’s plans to increase international student enrolment are “in jeopardy” due to the federal government’s decision to further limit the number of international students admitted to study in Canada next year. In its 2022 strategic plan, Western University wrote it aims to increase international undergraduate enrolment to 20 per cent by 2030. But in an interview with the Gazette on Oct. 3, Shepard said the university is now “going backwards.” When the strategic plan was announced in the 2021–22 school year, 10.8 per cent of Western’s undergraduate students were international students. Shepard said this year, that figure is below 10 per cent.
According to the Office of Institutional Planning and Budgeting, 8.9 per cent of Western’s undergraduate students were international in the 2023-24 school year. Data for the 2024-25 school year is not yet available. The federal government announced on Sept. 18 that in 2025, the number of international student study permits issued will shrink to 437,000 — 10 per cent less than the 2024 target of 485,000, with the cap continuing into 2026. This announcement came after Immigration Minister Marc Miller announced in January the federal government would cap international student study permits for the next two years. At the time, the government said it would approve around 360,000 undergraduate study permits in 2024, a reduction of 35 per cent from 2023. The September international student cap announcement was extended to include graduate and doctoral students.
“We have concerns about the ways in which graduate student reductions in Canada will reduce our research capability and research productivity,” said Shepard. There were 4,690 international undergraduate and graduate students enrolled at Western in the 2023-24 school year, accounting for 13.6 per cent of the student body. Under the initial international student cap announced in January, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada said each province and territory was allotted a portion of the total permits based on its population. The province then distributed the permits to post-secondary institutions through provincial attestation letters, which international students must submit with their study permit application. In an April statement, IRCC said Ontario was allocated 239,793 international undergraduate study permit applications, estimating an approval rate of 60 per cent.
Western told the Gazette it received 1,058 provincial attestation letters, with 210 allocated to the affiliate colleges — King’s University College and Huron University College — for the 2024-25 school year. In the January announcement, Miller said the cap was intended to target “bad actors” like learning institutions that have taken advantage of high international student tuition fees by increasing international student intake while failing to provide adequate resources. Shepard believes Western separates itself from such institutions by providing incoming international students with adequate housing and supports including language help and access to mental health services.
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