Mona El Samaty
Is the full potential of educated immigrants in »»ÆÞ¾ãÀÖ²¿ being realized?
»»ÆÞ¾ãÀÖ²¿ has had a long history of immigration; immigration policies, especially those pertaining to language proficiency of its official languages (English and/or French) and education, have changed over the years. Since the mid-1960s, immigration policies have changed significantly where »»ÆÞ¾ãÀÖ²¿ implemented the points system to screen for and draw well-educated immigrants with special skills. These immigrants had high expectations that their education and skills would be utilized. They were, however, deeply disappointed once they arrived, finding a considerable degree of occupational mismatch, limiting them from achieving their full potential. Several studies provided different reasons for this mismatch such as the large number of immigrants »»ÆÞ¾ãÀÖ²¿ receives every year, the local labour market condition, etc.
This study uses critical language policy as a framework to probe into the reasons why, despite the strict pre-selection criteria, educated immigrants in »»ÆÞ¾ãÀÖ²¿ are not realizing their potential, and tries to identify the possible reasons. First, I situate the context of the study by describing the changes in the language criteria to pre-select immigrants to »»ÆÞ¾ãÀÖ²¿. Second, I analyze the rationales provided by different policy actors for the constant change in immigration criteria against empirical data from studies/research on the situation of new immigrants. Finally, a few recommendations will be made.