Visa-related problems hinder Turkish students’ education plans

ISTANBUL

Many Turkish students are not able to continue their education due to Schengen visa problems such as facing an increased scrutiny of visa applications and waiting for months to get an appointment date.

With the waiting period for a visa, which is normally three weeks, increased up to five months, many young people who wanted to study abroad had to cancel their education plans.

The students who have the right to study abroad cannot have their transactions completed because their passports are not received. Moreover, students who have been waiting for a long time then get a refusal.

Some students cannot even apply for a visa as they don’t have passports, while the time required to renew a passport or apply for a new one, which is normally a week, can now take months.

Noting that students have had serious problems with visas to the U.K., the U.S., Canada and European countries recently, Olcay Erten, an educational counsellor, said, “Our requests are rejected for unrelated reasons.”

“We were able to send students to the language schools in previous years even by applying two months before,” Erten said, stating that this period now has increased to one-and-a-half years.

“After receiving so many refusals, we have decided not to provide services for language schools for those over the age of 18,” she added.

While students and parents, who are trying to make their voices heard and express their grievances on social media, reacted with showering the consulates with tweets and e-mails.

Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price argued that difficulties such as the extension of waiting periods up to one year are not only in Türkiye, but that this is due to COVID-19 restrictions.

“We will continue to work on this until this situation returns to what it was before the pandemic,” he added.

Sibel Özdemir, a deputy of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), has brought the difficulty experienced by Turkish citizens trying to obtain a visa to the agenda of the parliament by submitting a motion on Aug. 17.