Co-op stands for co-operative education, and it combines your study program with a paid or unpaid work term. International students who are required to participate in a co-op, internship, practicum, or placement as part of their study program must submit an application for a co-op work permit.
It doesn’t matter if the work is done on- or off-campus, for pay or not, during the summer or the academic year, or irrespective of the number of hours it took.
Students can apply for their co-op/internship work permit at the same time as they apply for their initial study visa if they have been accepted directly into a program that calls for an internship (such as a B.Ed. or MBA).
Students are recommended to apply for their co-op/internship work permit six months before their internship is scheduled to begin owing to the current processing delays.
Please note that you won’t have to pay any fees for filing this application.
You are qualified for this permit if:
• You receive a letter from your department indicating that the work experience
• You possess a current study permit
• The job in question is necessary for your program
• The employment consists of less than 50 percent of the program
If working is an essential component of your course of study, you must first get a co-op work permit. You are only permitted to do the job throughout your co-op work period if it has been approved by your co-op program. Even if the permission is still valid, you cannot utilize it to work outside of these authorized parameters.
Depending on the terms of the work placement approved by the DLI, the co-op work permit helps the holder to work up to full time during the semester. Irrespective of whether the obligatory job placement is paid/unpaid, a co-op work permit is needed.