COVID grounds students’ work and travel programmes

a student claimed that all students were required to pay the stipulated US$400 cancellation fee.

However, Foster says that students were given the option to avoid that charge.

OVERWHELMING

RESPONSE

“We negotiated with the department that since they (students) paid for the programme already, we cannot take US$400 from them and then ask them to pay another US$200 next year. ... We decided to suffer the loss of millions because of that and not make the students suffer, and we got an overwhelming response. Most of the students capitalised on it,” he said.

“I would have loved if all the students deferred, but in reality, I don’t think all of them can because some of them are finalyear students. They can’t do the programme next year, so they just have to cancel because this was their last chance.”

While Foster didn’t disclose a specific number for SWAT, he says that up to 8,000 students from Jamaica usually enrol in the work and travel programme overseas annually.

“We send the largest amount of students. Out of that number, only about 10 per cent already had their visas, so most of the students are staying home,” he said, noting that the United States government told its embassy to stop conducting interviews for visas.

As a result, he says that no student who registered through SWAT would be travelling this summer.

“The impact is sadly affecting the agencies because the agencies still have to be covering the expenses that they had invested from September last year to March, when COVID came out. It is really sad that not everybody can see eye-to-eye with the agencies that we have to charge something,” Foster said.