Canadian High Commissioner Urges Visa Applicants To Apply Early

Mrs. Heather Cameron, the Canadian High Commissioner to Ghana, has advised Ghanaian students with interest to study in Canada to apply for their visas early to avoid last minute stress.

She said very often students waited until the eleventh-hour to apply for their visas and that always created traffic and work for the Embassy.

'The question that we get asked a lot by Ghanaians is about visas. You do need a visa to study in Canada once you have been accepted at a Canadian college or school or university. That is a separate process from applying for schools.

'The important piece of advice is to apply for your visas early. We have so many students wanting to go to Canada, it's always very busy, so please do not leave it to the last hour,' she said.

Mrs Cameron gave the advice on Wednesday at an EduCanada Fair in Accra by the Canadian High Commission.

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency, Mrs Cameron said Ghanaians students were more than capable of mastering mathematics and there was no need for them to develop fear for the subject.

Mrs Cameron said Canada was very proud to be a foundational partner for the Africa Institute in Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) at Biriwa in the Central Region because it was producing Advanced Mathematics graduates that Ghana's economy needed.

She said AIMS was an important investment that Canada was making in Ghana to strengthen the country's capacity in Advanced Mathematics.

Mrs Cameron said this in an answer to the question, 'What is Canada contributing to help eradicate the phobia that Ghanaian students have for Mathematics?'

She said Canada had a lot to offer by extending its educational opportunities to help equip applicants with furthering their education in Canada, which was one of the hottest technological countries in the world.

Artificial Intelligence, Advanced Mathematics, Theoretical Physics and many more disciplines as well as research areas are being expressly centred on to help students who apply to give back to their country upon completion.

'In Quebec we have about 1200 companies working solely on just aluminium, with various research clusters doing research in aluminium, bauxite and other areas of mining in Toronto and Montreal, which will be relevant to Ghana,' she said.

Mrs Cameron urged students to patronise the offers presented to them saying; 'Canada offers one of the best educational systems in the world, we are cost competitive but we offer one of the most affordable educations in the world. Our cost of living is also cheaper depending on where you chose.'

Twenty-four Canadian schools; from High School to undergraduate studies, offer sales speech to the many students and parents looking for potential destinations in schooling.