Visa, Residence and Legal Status
The examples below show how different countries and programmes structure visa, residency and legal status for refugee students in education pathway programmes, and how these choices affect mobility, access to rights and access to durable solutions.
Canada
Canada has the longest-established tradition of refugee education pathways. Most refugee students on education pathways enter Canada through the Student Refugee Program, operated by the international NGO WUSC. The programme uses Canada’s Private Sponsorship of Refugees Programmw to support its work.
Through this pathway, students are granted permanent residency on arrival and receive guaranteed financial and community support. This means that students can access state and federal benefits and student supports, including loans to complete their education after the first year of full support.
Student Refugee Programme students do not have refugee status. However, permanent residency provides a pathway to Canadian citizenship and family reunion. Other Canadian immigration pathways, such as the international student visa stream, are also used on a smaller scale by other organisations to support displaced students.
Australia
In Australia, the Refugee Student Settlement Pathway uses a Special Humanitarian Program subclass 202 visa. This provides permanent protection and a pathway to citizenship after four years.
As permanent humanitarian entrants, students have full access to Centrelink social security programmes and Medicare public health insurance. Permanent protection also supports access to higher education as domestic students and to the Higher Education Contribution Scheme, which allows students to defer tuition costs until they are earning as graduates.
Belgium
Initial legal framework in Belgium: humanitarian visa for education purposes followed by an application for international protection
This framework allowed students to enter Belgium through a humanitarian visa issued for education purposes. After arrival, students could apply for international protection in Belgium. Their stay was therefore based on two connected elements: a humanitarian visa and residence permit on humanitarian grounds, and an application for international protection that was expected to move forward after arrival.
Advantages
It created opportunities for students who did not qualify under other legal frameworks.
Renewal conditions during studies were not dependent on academic progress.
Students with no prospects for a sustainable future in their country of origin or country of first reception could work towards a sustainable future in Belgium.
Challenges
The legal framework depended on national government authorities, including for funding under humanitarian admission quotas. This funding covered costs such as travel, partner support and administrative fees.
Renewal of residence permits was based on discretionary conditions, which created uncertainty for students.
Funding for living expenses during studies was conditional.
The legal framework did not provide solutions for family members or for people who depended on the students for their livelihood.
Findings
The legal framework ended abruptly after a single decision linked to a change in government policy. This affected both future admissions and the renewal conditions for students already enrolled.
Not all students followed the proposed framework. For example, some had travel options through their own passport, while others were affected by changes in the assessment of international protection.
Uncertainty about the extension of residence permits was linked to reported concerns about mental well-being and academic performance.
Current legal framework in Belgium: student visa
The current framework is based on ad hoc commitments from higher education institutions to open scholarship opportunities specifically for forcibly displaced students in their first country of asylum. This is done in collaboration with UNHCR, which supports the identification of eligible students, and with community sponsorship initiatives, which provide support after students arrive in Belgium.
Advantages
A robust and clearly defined legal framework provides legal certainty for students who meet the criteria and is less susceptible to policy changes.
Standardised procedures may make it possible to scale up the pathway more easily.
The visa can apply to a wider group of forcibly displaced students, including those who do not necessarily qualify for refugee status. It can therefore serve as a strictly complementary pathway to resettlement programmes.
Challenges
Renewal conditions depend on academic progress.
Students must be financially self-sufficient in order to renew their residence permit.
During their studies, students rely on the available grant, possibly supplemented by income from student work. After completing their studies, and once the grant ends, students must quickly secure full-time income from employment.
After graduation, students must convince an employer within one year to recruit them under a work permit. This means students must focus not only on academic progress, but also on professional language acquisition and labour market participation through internships or student work.
These combined requirements can increase psychological pressure and uncertainty, which may affect academic progress.
The legal framework does not provide solutions for family members or for people who depend on the students for their livelihood.
The framework depends on available scholarships and involves competition with other scholarship schemes for students facing financial challenges.
Findings
Funding is limited to student expenses. Additional funding is needed for coordination and facilitation activities.
The range of stakeholders able to provide financial support for this framework needs to be broadened.
Working sustainably with student visas requires strong partnerships with different stakeholders to overcome identified barriers.
Ireland: Special Visa with Concessions
Refugee education pathway students in Ireland receive a unique variation of a Stamp 1 immigration permission. This allows them to study and work in Ireland and gives them an additional right to receive public healthcare, but not other social security benefits.
This special status must be renewed each year. Time spent on this visa can be counted towards a future application for naturalisation. The status is an exceptional permission and is not equivalent to refugee status.
The status applies only in the Republic of Ireland. Like other immigration permissions issued in Ireland, it does not give refugee education pathway students or graduates the right to travel to the United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland, under Common Travel Area provisions, or to travel to other European countries, such as those in the Schengen area.
France: Student Visa
In France, refugee education pathway students enter through the UNIV’R programme, the French education pathway. Before university selection, UNHCR checks the exact legal status of each applicant. Applicants must be recognised refugees in a non-EU country; asylum seekers are not eligible.
UNHCR also checks whether applicants already have, or can easily obtain, a valid travel document. This may be either a passport or a Convention Travel Document issued by the country of asylum, at the request of the local UNHCR representation.
Once a candidate is selected by a host university, they must begin the visa process. A key support measure is the label of “grantees from the French Government”, which selected candidates receive from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This applies even though their scholarships are funded through other sources, such as the Ministry of Higher Education, universities or foundations. The label helps accelerate the visa process, waives visa fees, exempts students from tuition fees when registering at a public university, and gives students access to a room in a student dormitory.
UNIV’R grantees arrive in France with a student visa and receive a one-year residence permit, which must be renewed annually. Many students later apply for asylum in France and may change to refugee status if their application is approved. Depending on the type of refugee status they had in the first country of asylum, whether recognised by UNHCR or by national authorities, this status may be transferred almost automatically, or it may not.