In a toughening of its immigration guidelines, the Department of Justice has begun to refuse without explanation the majority of student applications from the People's Republic of China, it has been learned.
Before March of this year up to 70 per cent of student visa applications from China were approved, but it is understood that under guidelines brought in by the Department in March-April, the approval rate has dropped to as low as one in 10.
"As a result of these refusals, Ireland is being perceived as inaccessible and unfriendly, and our partners in China are talking about redirecting students to Switzerland and England," said Mr Paul Kennedy, managing director of ICON International, an English-language and educational services company based in Howth, Co Dublin, which places students from all over the world at its own and other schools and colleges in Ireland.
The change in the guidelines coincides with a steep rise in the number of applications from Chinese students wishing to study in Ireland. In 1997 the Irish Embassy in Beijing processed some 750 visa requests, most of them student-related. This year there were 500 applications in the first three months, and it is estimated that 1,500 Chinese citizens will apply to come to Ireland in 1998, the majority on student visas.
The increase is believed to be due to easier availability of passports in China, a growing Chinese middle class with disposable income, and a heightened awareness of Ireland as an English-speaking country with high education standards. Mr Kennedy, who was in China last week giving seminars in several cities about educational opportunities in Ireland, pointed out that the potential income from 1,500 Chinese students spending at least £10,000 each for one academic year in Ireland would mean an intake to the economy of £15 million a year at a time when the imbalance in trade between the two countries is running at 8-1 in China's favour.
One of the reasons for the toughening of immigration guidelines for Chinese students is believed to be the increasing sophistication of forged documents used by Chinese would-be emigrants posing as bona-fide students or business travellers.
ICON is aware of this, and with its Chinese partner, an organisation called Da Di (Big Earth), carefully vets student applicants and ensures that they pay in advance for fees and living expenses, said Mr Kennedy.
"The students don't want to stay over, and Da Di doesn't want to get a bad reputation", he added.
The problem of forgery is so acute in Fuji, a province in southeastern China, that ICON has refused to do business there. Some months ago a group of Chinese travellers with valid student visas who arrived at Dublin Airport on Scandinavian Airlines was refused entry by immigration officials on suspicion that they were not bonafide students.
"We appreciate the difficulties of the Justice Department, but they have led to inexplicable decisions," said Mr Kennedy. He cited the example of a young Chinese woman who had been given a visa while her cousin with the same educational and financial background had been rejected. There was an increasing number of cases where no reason was given for rejection.
"With no explanation given you lose face with people in China. It ruins our reputation," he said. Appeals were also unsuccessful in most cases. If a student already in Ireland wished to extend a visa, the Department now required them go home and reapply, where originally they could get visas renewed in Dublin.
Mr Kennedy visited 11 cities in China giving seminars in top hotels to 200-300 people during his recent visit, which was a follow-up to visits in June 1997 and January 1998 promoting Irish education opportunities.