Bill on student migration: fraud gate stays open, N-VA votes against it

Student visas must strengthen our universities by attracting the “best and brightest”. In practice, the opposite is still too often the case. Too many foreign students do not have the basic competences to graduate successfully and they disappear into illegality. The problematic transposition of a European directive into a bill is a missed opportunity for the State Secretary for Asylum and Migration to tackle fraud involving student visas.

Non-European students who come to study and obtain their PhD at our universities can enrich our academic landscape. Therefore, to promote student migration to Europe, the EU adopted a directive in 2016. Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration Sammy Mahdi (CD&V) now wants to transpose this into our legislation, but there are big gaps in it.

No financial guarantees

For example, the financial guarantees that the government draft requires of foreign students are far from adequate. The so-called “guarantor scheme”, whereby third parties act as financial guarantors for foreign students, is an empty shell. As soon as problems arise, these guarantors all too often disappear into thin air. The checks on study progress will also be deleted so that students who repeat years twice or even three times can stay here indefinitely. “It cannot be the intention that foreign students turn to an OCMW to obtain benefits after arrival in our country because they cannot provide for their own livelihood,” responds MP Yoleen Van Camp.

No language requirements

In addition, the Secretary of State’s bill does not impose any language requirements on foreign students. What is odd, after all, is that to have a successful academic career in Flanders, sufficient knowledge of the language in which the higher education will be taught is necessary. The N-VA holds that foreign students must submit a certificate demonstrating an NT2 level of Dutch. “A good knowledge of Dutch is a matter of respect for educational institutions and the Flemish taxpayer who pays for these courses. The fact that not even that is required shows the enormous laxity with which this directive is being transposed,” MP Darya Safai says.

No respect for parliament and Flanders

Finally, the way in which the Vivaldi government has pushed this bill through is also shocking. Despite much fuss about a new political culture and the establishment of an Interministerial Conference on Migration and Integration, the State Secretary consulted with nobody. “Sammy Mahdi is coming up with the first major bill that has a direct impact on the powers of the federal states, namely education, and is not consulting with the relevant ministers. In addition, he did not even attend the plenary discussion of this draft in the House. No respect for this parliament, nor for the competences of the federal states,” MP Theo Francken concludes.