Canada will stop allowing international students to work more than 20 hours per week from Tuesday, April 30.

Immigration Minister Marc Miller has announced the end of the temporary policy that was introduced during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada says a new policy to be introduced in fall will allow international students to work 24 hours per week.

The decision is designed to ensure that students come to Canada with the primary intention to study, IRCC said.

“Working off campus helps international students gain work experience and offset some of their expenses,” Miller said.

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“As international students arrive in Canada, we want them to be prepared for life here and have the support they need to succeed.

“However, first and foremost, people coming to Canada as students must be here to study, not work. We will continue working to protect the integrity of our student program.”

On announcing the new policy, IRCC said it looked at student needs, policies in other countries and studies that show working too much affects the study success of international students.

Research conducted in the US and Canada shows “considerable decline in academic performance” in students working more than 28 hours per week, IRCC said.

Canada looked at policies in Australia and the US when deciding its new limits on working hours. In Australia, students are limited to 48 hours of off-campus work every two weeks, while is the US special permission is required to do any off-campus work.

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Canada has recently introduced a number of changes to its international student program, including a cap on the number of Study Permits each province can issue.

It has also introduced a new letter of acceptance verification process to ensure internation students are attending genuine designated learning institutions. It has confirmed 142,000 LOAs as genuine since April 1 and found almost 9,000 with irregularities.

It raised the cost of living threshold for the approval of a Study Permit in December so that students are not too reliant on having to work to pay for their studies.

Canada has also cracked down on public-private curriculum licensing arrangements, but making students studying under such programs ineligible for the Post-Graduation Work Permit as of May 15. Those who started their program before the cutoff date will remain eligible.

Canada is also working on a new Recognized Institutions Framework to reward post-secondary institutions that set high standards for selecting, supporting and retaining international students.

This follows reports of a number of institutions that took advantage of the program and of international student candidates.