Lakehead University and Confederation College navigating the extension of the COVID-19 travel ban on India.
The federal government made the move August 9, which was met with consensus that this will certainly make travel for international students much more difficult.
This means students will have to travel to a different nation, prior to travelling into Canada.
“It makes sense to do this given the situation in India, but we have a significant number of students from India and it has been really hard on them,” says James Aldridge, the Vice-Provost International at Lakehead University. “We have lots of difficult stories we are hearing about students having to take very roundabout and expensive trips to get here as a result. We’ve heard students paying three times what they normally would to travel to Canada from India going through other countries.”
Richard Gemmill, the Vice President Academic at Confederation College, says this has become the norm for many people during the pandemic.
“Many of our students from India, and other countries for that matter have to travel through a third country,” explains Gemmill. “It’s totally permitted, they’re not circumventing anything, so it’s not unusual for us to have students going through a third country.”
The travel ban has been extended until at least Tuesday, September 21.
