Red River Polytechnic forging new ties in Asia amid foreign student disruptions

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This article was published 30/12/2024 (446 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Red River College Polytechnic is doubling down on its global partnerships and making new ties in Asia to bolster name recognition amid uncertainty in the international education sector.

“While we are dealing with the disruption to international education domestically it may seem counterintuitive to work with our existing and new international partners,” president and chief executive officer Fred Meier wrote in a mass email to employees on Nov. 1.

“However, now is perhaps the most important time to foster those relationships and showcase the value of the Canadian brand across the globe.”

The Winnipeg-based polytechnic has signed five memorandums of understanding with various Filipino and Thai campuses in recent months, the Free Press has learned.

The new partnerships — which are discussed in documents obtained through freedom of information — were announced as post-secondary schools across the province reassess recruitment practices and revenue streams in response to Ottawa’s cap on foreign enrolment.

Internal memos indicate they aim to expand faculty and student exchanges, increase applied research and facilitate intercultural learning.

For the current school year, Manitoba was allotted a total of 18,652 new provincial attestation letters for undergraduate students; schools must now give international applicants a “PAL” to request a study permit from the federal government.

Post-secondary leaders were initially concerned about the limited number of letters each of them were assigned by the provincial government, but the University of Manitoba, University of Winnipeg and RRC Polytech, among others, have not been able to distribute all of theirs.

Those who are impacted say the cap has created global confusion about Canada’s stance on international education and deterred potential candidates from moving to Manitoba.

RRC Polytech’s enrolment of first-year foreigners dropped nine per cent last semester compared to the fall term in 2023-24.

It has not been the hardest hit — U of W’s early registration data suggested its new international student population was cut in half — but the polytechnic has not been exempt from the fallout.

School staff have been lobbying provincial and federal governments and reviewing both programs and international seat allocations to lessen the impact, per internal correspondence.

Meier travelled to Asia in October to visit Shenyang Institute of Engineering and other campuses in the region on what he called an “executive mission.”

He was joined by Jeanine Webber, RRC Polytech’s academic executive director, global engagement manager Bryan Meng and Eddy Lau, who oversees international education at the institution.

The group signed multiple agreements in the Philippines, with De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde and Mapua University in the capital of Manila, as well as Cebu City’s Cebu Technological University.

RRC Polytech also formalized partnerships with Thailand-based Rangsit University and Rajamangala University of Technology Suvarnabhumi.

Throughout the fall, Meier sent staff memos touting the possibilities linked to the school’s newest collaborators and its renewed relationship with a public college in the capital city of Liaoning, a northeastern province in China.

There is potential to connect a game development and design program in Manila to the Winnipeg-based school’s entertainment and media arts institute, he noted.

Meantime, RRC Polytech and its longest-standing global partner, Shenyang Institute of Engineering, recently passed government evaluations required to extend their decades-long partnership.

Despite being multiple flights apart and having a 14-hour time difference, the campuses first collaborated in 1987 to launch an institute of languages.

In 2006, they developed a joint program in electrical engineering that equips graduates with both a Chinese degree and a Canadian diploma. There are roughly 1,150 registrants in the program this year.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca