Université Laval

Université Laval in Quebec City received its royal charter in 1852 and traces its roots to the Séminaire de Québec of 1663, making it the oldest French-language university in the Americas. It has more than 47,000 students. One figure distinguishes it and it is worth stating precisely: over 90 per cent of Laval's undergraduate programmes include mandatory or elective paid internships. That is a higher proportion than Waterloo, whose co-operative education is Canada's better-known model. For a Kazakh applicant it means paid work experience is close to standard rather than exceptional — offsetting cost and building the Canadian employment record that supports a later permanent residence application. Teaching is in French. Quebec City is more consistently francophone than Montreal, which makes daily life harder without the language and acquisition faster with it.