Foreign students in illegality

Foreign students in illegality

Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences fears that some foreign master’s students will disappear into illegality. Their English is actually not good enough and after a few weeks they won’t show up. The University of Applied Sciences even has the “suspicion of illegal immigration” which it doesn’t want to support, reports University of Applied Sciences magazine Profielen (in Dutch). Prospective students will therefore have to take language tests more often before they are allowed to start.

The Association of Universities of Applied Sciences has not yet heard of the problem, says spokesman Jos Steehouder. “This is new for us. It’s not an image that we broadly recognize”. Eleven years ago, the Education Inspectorate did warn of the risk (in Dutch) that students could disappear into illegality if they dropped out of their studies.

“The number of students who stop and disappear completely from the radar is growing and is now too large to be attributed to the usual causes”, explains spokesman Carmen Ajok of the University of Applied Sciences when asked. “The suspicion exists, in other words, that a number of them are not returning to their country of origin.” (HOP)