II. C. Foreign Student Placements

Some countries allow foreign students who are registered in academic studies to replace their student visas with work permits for defined periods of employment if it can be shown that the employment is an integral component of their education. If the foreign student is admitted to that institution's co-op program then the Œintegral component' issue is conveniently satisfied. The documentation required to convert the student visa to a work permit includes an offer letter from the employer (stating such things as: start/end dates, salary and job description) and a letter from the institution confirming the student's status as a co-op student. This process can be repeated in those instances (e.g. Canada and the US) where co-op programs require students to complete four or five different work terms prior to graduation.

during their period of academic study, foreign students are available for pre-placement activities and interview periods;

for employers, the process of hiring such foreign co-op students is practically the same as it is for hiring domestic co-op students;

the availability of foreign students may expand a co-op program's offerings to its regular employers, particularly when dealing with multi-nationals or branch-plants;

foreign students may become good contacts after returning to their home countries, convincing their new employers to hire international students.

care must be taken to ensure foreign students are not discriminated against;

some companies only hire co-op students who are eligible for full-time employment upon graduation and will not take on foreign students for co-op placements.

Foreign students can also gain international work experience by taking advantage of an option in some countries that entitles them to a valid 12-month work permit upon graduation from a university. Again, the institution's co-op program may assume responsibility for identifying suitable positions for these students.

The foreign student model can also be used effectively when students from developing countries study abroad in a developed country. The combination of study and work abroad can be very useful, not only to the student but also to the developing country once the returning student is able to apply any new technology with which they have had experience. A good example of this is being followed by the Chemical and Process Engineering Department at the University of Surrey in the UK. It began when a chemical engineering student from the University of Nairobi in Kenya studied research methodology for a month at Surrey, completed a three-month placement in industry and then returned to Kenya. There, building upon the experience gained in the UK, he teamed up with an engineering co-op student from Drexel University in the US who was in Kenya through Drexel's international co-op link with Surrey. Their project was to design and build a transportable system that could extract natural oils from plants by steam distillation. Interestingly, the student from Drexel was enrolled in an Appropriate Technology Course, which is intended to facilitate technology transfer to developing countries. This lead to further exchanges and subsequent design modifications to the equipment to produce a portable pilot-plant that the University of Nairobi now uses as a teaching resource and for external contract work. This particular model makes excellent use of networking, a practice that many survey respondents hope WACE Inc. will be able to facilitate.

Another model that uses the student visa/work permit conversion is the concept of the Satellite Campus. Here, an academic institution may set up a satellite campus in a foreign country for its own students to study abroad. While there, the students could be eligible to convert their student visas into work permits as discussed above. Again, a co-op unit at the satellite campus would take responsibility for identifying appropriate job placements for these students, by taking advantage of its local network.

A Guide for Developing International Co-op Programs