Educational Credential Assessments

Meurrens LawImmigration Trends

An Educational Credential Assessment is a report by a designated company company that evaluates an individual’s foreign education and compares it to a Canadian equivalent. It is necessary to be eligible for the Federal Skilled Worker Program, to get education points in Express Entry and for certain provincial nomination programs.

The designated organizations are:

The Medical Council of Canada has been designated only for those applicants who intend to apply with “specialist physician” or “general practitioner/family physician” as their primary occupation in their application.

Jurisprudence

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (“IRCC”) will follow what a designated entity states in its Educational Credential Assessment (an “ECA”).  In Ijaz v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2015 FC 67, the Federal Court of Canada affirmed that that visa officers can simply follow exactly what an ECA, stating that:

In my view, based on the foregoing, it was open to the Officer to interpret the WES educational assessment and the IRP Regulations as he did, being that the WES equivalency finding of two years of undergraduate study and two years of professional study were not the equivalent of a Canadian Educational Credential. The WES educational assessment did not state that that the Applicant’s credentials were equivalent to Canadian educational credentials, and the Officer relied on this as conclusive evidence as required by s. 75(8) of the IRP Regulations. Thus, while the Officer had discretion in interpreting ambiguous language in the WES, he had no discretion on the points to be awarded once the meaning of the report had been ascertained.

For example, as indicated in the correspondence below between an immigration representative and the IRCC Immigration Representatives Inbox, if an individual completes a one-year program abroad but an ECA states that its Canadian equivalent is only one semester, the individual will not get credit for a one year program.

However, as the Federal Court stated in Gill v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2021 FC 841, an ECA deals with educational equivalency and does not necessarily denote whether a school’s programs has been retrospectively withdrawn. In this case, the court upheld a visa officer’s determination that an applicant committed misrepresentation in stating that they had a degree from Karnataka State Open University, when all distance-learning degrees granted by that school had been withdrawn.

As well, in Agbhonkese v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2021 FC 1065 the Federal Court noted that while World Education Services (“WES”) assessed degree equivalency, it did not appear to consider whether a degree was a professional program that is awarded extra points under Express Entry.

Finally, in Kaur v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2024 FC 251, Madam Justice Go held that it was unreasonable for a visa officer to state that an ECA indicated that someone did not have a level of study equivalent to one-year post-secondary education when the ECA stated that the Canadian equivalency was “five years of professional study in dentistry.”

@steven.meurrens #ircc ECA mistake. #WES #ECA #worldeducationservices #caregiver #indiadentist ♬ original sound – Steven Meurrens


Secondary Diplomas with Undergraduate Credits

An ECA which states that the Canadian equivalent of a foreign credential is “secondary school diploma from a university preparatory with undergraduate credit” will only get points for completion of secondary school, and not a one year university program.

Credential vs. Completion of Courses

In Gumtang v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2023 FC 758, the Federal Court of Canada held that completing years of study without the conferment of a credential is not the same as having received an actual credential, such as a diploma or certificate.

Policy

The following ATIP shows several internal IRCC policy instructions about ECAs.

A-2021-54776