Year in, year out, close to 5,000 international students attend our institutions. They generally come from much more diverse markets, compared to the clientele that attends English-language institutions. They mainly come from sub-Saharan Africa and the Maghreb.
According to an ACUFC survey conducted in 2020, over 90% of the international students who attend our institutions wish to remain in Canada after completing their studies. You'll understand that this represents an important pool from which to increase the federal government's action in terms of francophone immigration. By way of comparison, at mainstream institutions, according to the Canadian Bureau for International Education, around 40% of students want to stay in Canada.
Our French-language institutions are doing extra work to attract and retain students, and to help them make the transition to permanent residency, in far greater proportions than the majority of English-language institutions. This pool is renewed year after year and, as I'm sure you've heard, the number of applications to post-secondary institutions across the country, in all languages, is growing rapidly. So it's a significant pool.
If Canada wants to act on francophone immigration targets, it must support the work of institutions in recruiting students and transitioning them to permanent residency.