Tighter visa rules to impact Polish universities, students

Poland recently altered its visa regulations for international students following a major "student visa scandal" that emerged in May 2024.

- Simple Vishwakarma

This scandal exposed the misuse of student visas for unlawful employment within the EU, prompting the Polish government to introduce stricter measures aimed at safeguarding the integrity of its educational system.

Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski announced that under the new policy, international students must now present a high school certificate to obtain a student visa. "A student visa grants the right to work for one year, which led to numerous cases where individuals obtained visas and never attended the university that facilitated their entry," Sikorski stated in an interview with TCN 24.

Sikorski emphasised that the policy aims to ensure that only genuine students receive visas.

The Free Press Journal reached out to Polish universities to understand their perspectives on the new regulations. Ewa Walusiak-Bednarek, Senior Specialist in Administration at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, explained that the university has not changed its recruitment rules to accommodate the new visa requirements. "Universities in Poland define the admission rules and the set of required documents in a resolution of the Senate one year before the start of recruitment. Therefore, it is not possible to change them during the recruitment process," Walusiak-Bednarek said.

"In fact, a few weeks before its end, as the guidelines of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for embassies were issued on July 31, the Universities learned about it on August 5 from the embassy in New Delhi," the Senior Specialist added.