Foreign students on online courses will be denied visas to Germany
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Foreign students coming to Germany this semester whose courses are online only will not be eligible for visas because of the pandemic, the German government announced
Students from outside the European Union are now required to receive a “certificate of presence” from their German university to be able to apply for a visa.
“Foreign students who can prove that their studies cannot be carried out entirely from abroad, for example, due to compulsory attendance, can enter the country to begin their studies,” a statement from Education Minister Anja Karliczek reads. “But the entry for online or distance learners will not be allowed.”
The announcement comes around two months before the start of so-called winter semesters in Germany.
The number of people affected by the rules remains unclear, partly because of the unknown development of the pandemic. But as things stand, the number of face-to-face courses which have become only-online courses is very small, according to Michael Flacke of the German Academic Exchange Service.
“For the winter semester, German universities are planning a mix of online and physical classes, and for this ‘mix’ foreign students from outside the EU are allowed to come to Germany,” Flacke explained.
Most courses are not planning to move entirely online, Flacke said. Attendees of courses that were always entirely online from outside the EU were never eligible for student visas.
“Of course you can already study in a German university or college online from abroad — that works really well in Germany — but at the moment for a purely online course in Germany, no visa is normally provided,” he pointed out.
For those students currently enrolled in a course which is a mix of online and physical events, Flacke advises making sure you are in possession of a “certificate of attendance” as soon as possible.
