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By Floros Voniatis, CEO Chair of the Council, UCLan Cyprus
According to recent research, Higher Education in Cyprus is proving to be a very promising business sector which provides a substantial and ever-increasing contribution to the country’s GDP.
Despite efforts to attract high calibre and economically sound students, so that Cyprus may be considered a competitive choice as a Higher Education destination, the universities in Cyprus are facing strong competition from private universities of other countries in the European Union.
Presently, our universities are in competition with other HE Institutions of larger countries that have a longstanding tradition and history in academia, and which also benefit highly from the prompt support and service of their countries’ governmental departments.
Cypriot universities provide the necessary infrastructure in line with European and international standards, as well as highly qualified academic and professional staff and can easily attract overseas students; unfortunately, however, the approval process for student visas is hindering these efforts due to complicated and inefficient procedures adopted by our own governmental departments.
This not only undermines our universities’ competitiveness, but consequently creates an untrustworthy environment that encourages collaborating overseas educational counsellors to send their students to other European countries where a more advanced and streamlined process for approving student visas is offered.
In addition, these countries also allow students to find part-time employment (through internships) in jobs which are related to their studies. In our country, this opportunity is not on open offer to overseas students and is confined to a small number of employment sectors which cover only a minimal number of students from a very restricted selection of study programmes.
To remove these obstacles, a new procedure must be swiftly developed which will allow the universities themselves to issue provisional student visas based on a satisfactory evaluation of the overseas applicants’ academic and economic criteria.
In this way students will be able to register in a short space of time and will not choose to go to an alternative university in another country.
Once these students have entered the country, the responsibility will remain with the universities to process the formal approval of the student visa with the supervision and agreement of the state services.
The state can define the process and request the necessary commitments and guarantees from the universities, as well as monitor its administration, in order to assure the appropriate use of this discretionary authority which will be assigned to the universities.
Our universities should strive equally for the approval of the temporary student visa and for the right of overseas students to seek and acquire employment, in Cyprus, related to their programme of study.
Similar systems are already in operation in all developed Western countries and these should also be adopted here.
