Comment: Law proposal out of touch with reality

As an Iranian – and thus non-European – student, I would like to add some comments to a new law proposal, recently presented by Danish politician Søren ‌Pind.

According to an article in the University Post, the proposal will make it both more difficult and expensive to study in Denmark, because students from non-European countries need to pay for and pass an English language test and deposit DKK 30,000 in a Danish bank before entering the country.

Read the article here.

Demands already present

It is my experience that these »new« demands are already present:

1) It is not possible for non-Europeans to get admission from European universities without passing English fluency tests with a certain score (6 for IELTS and 88 for TOEFL iBT). This is explicitly stated on the websites of all Danish universities (KU, DTU, Aalborg, Aarhus, etc.).

2) As a non-European student we have to pay almost EUR 13,500 a year as a tuition fee! You might succeed in getting a scholarship to waive the tuition fee, but then you have to accomplish your studies in two years. Needless to say, there is no SU (The Danish students’ Grants and Loans Scheme) for non-European students.

New restriction

Yet the proposed requirement that students transfer money before entering the country is a new restriction that makes the process more difficult for students like me.

As an Iranian student, there is no way to transfer money directly from an Iranian bank to a European one. So how can I pay the deposit even if I want to? We already have to prove our ability regarding living expense to the European Union by a deposit of almost EUR 10,000 in a local bank. This should be sufficient.

The Danish people deserve a government whose law proposals reflect reality!

uni-avis@adm.ku.dk

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