Many Finnish educational institutions have found that dozens of foreign students registered at the schools have enrolled simply as a means of illegal immigration. Many of these students have moved on from Finland to other countries in the Schengen zone.

   

Some of the students in question never even begin their studies at all, while others attend very few classes.

   

Esko Repo of the Finnish Directorate of Immigration believes that each year up to a "three-digit figure" of foreign students leave Finland after their residence permits have expired, without actually studying anything while they are here.

   

Repo recalls one instance in which residence permits were granted to a group of 15 students, of whom only two started studies here; the rest simply vanished.

   

He emphasises, however, that those who abuse the system are a small minority; several thousand foreign students study in Finland each year.

   

"It is very difficult to estimate how many might abuse the system, as there are no statistics available", Esko Repo points out.

The Directorate of Immigration and the police

plan to investigate how many foreign students actually began their studies last autumn, and how well their studies have proceeded.

   

"Abusers of the system come mainly from Asia, Africa, Russia and Estonia. The problem is a common one in the Western countries", Repo says.

Students from outside the European Union

are given residence permits on the condition that they remain full time students. The residence permit can be cancelled if the student fails to meet this requirement. However, most cases of abuse remain unnoticed by the authorities until the student applies for another residence permit.

   

"The officials who grant the residence permits rarely have the resources to enforce the conditions while the permits are in force", Repo says.

   

The Directorate of Immigration occasionally orders the deportation of students, or imposes temporary bans on travel to Finland. The students in question have either had their residence permits cancelled, or they have been refused a new one, and have failed to leave the country voluntarily.

Finnish institutions of education

are not obliged by Finnish law to report foreign students who neglect their studies, although some do so voluntarily.

   

Some have been found to present forged student certificates as means of getting a place to study in Finland. Others exaggerate their linguistic skills.

   

The Helsinki University of Technology has tightened its requirements for foreign students.

   

At the University of Tampere Eveliina Permi at the Department of Social Sciences fears that abusers of the system may prove to be a big problem in the future.

   

Last year 150 foreign students applied to study at the department. Permi says that about 20 of them had none of the necessary qualifications to get in.

   

"If a student does not have the right background, then studies are probably not the primary reason to enter the country", she says.