Montreal, February 5: Around 2,000 international students – most from Punjab, some learning online and some on study visas – are left in the lurch with three private colleges in Canada’s Montreal city suddenly closing.
The three colleges first announced long winter vacations from November 30 to January 10. Then, just before closing, the authorities asked the students to deposit pending fees within one week. This amount ranged from Canadian $15,000 to 29,500 (between Rs 9 lakh and Rs 17.70 lakh).
While some students managed to pay, many others were not able to..
The three colleges are Collège de comptabilité et de secrétariat du Québec (CCSQ), College de I’Estrie (CDE) and M College.
CCSQ has two campuses at Longueuil and Sherbrooke and offered courses in accounting, secretarial studies, medical, computing and legal studies.
CDE offered six courses in business and administration and information technology. M College’ in LaSalle had four courses in business, health and technology.
In the court filing, the colleges blamed the COVID-19 pandemic for their financial troubles.
