Toronto, March 25 -- The share of Indians among the incoming international student population in Canada dropped from a peak of more than 50% in 2023 to less than 10% in 2025, according to a report submitted to Parliament by Canada's Auditor General on Monday. The report on International Student Program Reforms also rapped the country's immigration department for having fallen short in key areas. According to data presented in the report, Indians accounted for 51.6% of the incoming international student population in 2023, and that number dropped to 33.6 per cent in 2024, and till September 2025, the cohort's percentage fell sharply to 8.1 per cent. In a statement, Auditor General Karen Hogan said, "Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada implemented reforms to the International Student Program that supported a reduction in new study permits but fell short in other key areas." She added, "The department needs to act on the information it has to address integrity concerns in the program." The report said that between 2023 and 2024, the department identified over 153,000 students as potentially non-compliant with study permit conditions but had funding to investigate just 2,000 cases each year. It pointed out that in three investigations, IRCC identified 800 study permits issued between 2018 and 2023 for which applicants had either "used fraudulent documentation or misrepresented information on their applications to gain entry into Canada." Most of those individuals later applied for other immigration permits once in Canada. In that context it said that "in providing evidence of their previous educational experience, 710 applicants claimed to have attended educational institutions overseas that risk assessment units later found to be either non-existent or institutions selling qualifications for immigration purposes." IRCC did not take enforcement action, and currently, 110 of those individuals have applied for asylum....