In a report tabled in Parliament last week, the Auditor General of Canada flagged the gaps in how student visas are being assessed, highlighting countries with a high risk of fraudulent applications generally saw low approval rates — with “one important exception” in India.
What Are The Findings?
Moving ahead, this report highlighted the facts regarding the Indian students.
- As of September 2025, the share of visas issued to new Indian students fell from 51.6 per cent in 2023 to 8.1 per cent.
- In the meantime, the SDS approval rates for Indian students rose from 61 per cent in 2022 to 98 per cent in 2024.
- Notably, “Almost all” approved applications under SDS between 2022 and 2024 were from India.
- Out of 800, 541 flagged fraud-linked study permits (68 per cent) were issued under SDS.
- The study permit extension approval rates remained high at 94 per cent–95 per cent from January 2023 to September 2025.
Reduction In Number of Visas Issued To Indian Students
Besides this, the total number of visas issued to new Indian students plunged from 51.6 per cent in 2023 to 8.1 per cent in 2025 (till September), as per the report provided by Auditor General Karen Hogan.
Coming to the approval rates for students from India, under the Student Direct Stream (SDS), which included a fast-track feature, jumped from 61 per cent in 2022 to 98 per cent in 2024.
Moving ahead, the report said “SDS was being targeted by non-genuine students seeking entry to Canada”, despite warnings issued in August 2023 within Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.
This could be the push behind the Canada withdrewing the fast-track feature from the SDS programme by the end of 2024.
When it comes to the SDS, it was launched in 2018 for applicants from India, China, the Philippines and Vietnam. It was described as a fast-track, “light touch” eligibility review programme, which was later expanded to another ten countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Despite the revelation from the audit on International Student Programme Reforms, which found that “almost all approved applications in the Student Direct Stream originated from India” during 2022-2024, the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada was slow to act on integrity concerns, such as higher rates of fraudulent documents, reports of students not actively pursuing their studies and increased asylum claims.
It appears that there is a slide in the overall number of Indian students securing a Canadian visa.
This followed a 30-35 per cent reduction in the number of study permits offered to international students as Canada enforced a cap in January 2024, before discontinuing the fast-track advantage.
Although, the withdrawal of SDS reduced the risk associated with new study permit applications, but the damage is already done as warned by the audit that the very high number of student visas already issued to Indian students keeps the risk alive, as many apply for stay extensions.
