THE GOVERNMENT OF CANADA has a message for people in other countries who might consider coming to its universities to study: “It’s not all snow and ice here!” At least, that’s one of the messages Canada is sending out on websites and social media networks and in other types of marketing in a relentless bid to capture a bigger share of the increasingly competitive international student market.

Later to the game than other countries, Canada is a case study illustrating the reasons and the means by which governments are working to lure foreign students — especially from high-growth countries such as China, India and Brazil — and the obstacles to succeeding.

Now, more than a year after a report by Ipsos Reid, the Canadian arm of the international polling company, found that a five-year, multimillion-dollar campaign called ‘Imagine Education au/in Canada’ had failed to make inroads in those countries, the government has significantly expanded its efforts. “It’s almost becoming a cliche to say it, but the world is getting smaller, so the competition is growing,” says Sean Simpson, vice president in Ipsos Reid’s Toronto office. The number of post-secondary students enrolled abroad worldwide has doubled since 2000, to about 4.5 million, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and is projected to grow to 6.4 million by 2025.

Now under a new international education strategy, announced in January, Ottawa will spend C$5 million (Rs. 27.5 crore) a year to brand and market Canada as an education destination for prospective students in Brazil, China, India, Mexico, Turkey and Vietnam, plus C$13 million over two years to promote research and training links.

There are also domestic considerations. Canada’s birth rate has declined below the level needed to replace the population without immigration, the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada reports. And the 265,400 international students in Canada in 2012, the most recent year for which figures are available, spent C$8.4 billion (Rs.46,317 crore), helping to sustain 86,570 Canadian jobs and generate C$455 million in federal and provincial tax revenues, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development.

Those are among the reasons why many governments globally are trying to increase their international student enrolments — in Canada’s case, to 450,000 by 2022. According to the OECD’s Education Indicators in Focus report in July 2013, Canada is the sixth most popular destination for international students.

“We don’t have a school that’s a Harvard or Yale or a Berkeley or Stanford, or one that’s as recognisable as those big names,” Simpson says. And being cheaper may not equate to extra appeal, he continues. “There are a lot of wealthy families out there in developing countries that say, ‘I want my child to go abroad and have the best education possible’, and they perhaps equate spending more money with a great education.”

(Excerpted and adapted from Times Higher Education)