Pre-enrolment at Italian varsities: Pakistani students racing against time

About 80 Pakistani students are struggling to get their pre-enrolment document necessary for their visa applications.

ISLAMABAD:

About 80 Pakistani students admitted to undergraduate and graduate programmes in Italian universities, are struggling to get their pre-enrolment document necessary for their visa applications, The Express Tribune has learnt.

As a part of the enrolment process, the students applying to universities in Italy after being granted admission, have to schedule pre-enrolment appointment and submit their documents to the Italian embassy.

The embassy in collaboration with the Higher Education Commission (HEC) then verifies academic documents and short lists students who are then eligible to apply for a student visa. Each year from March, the Italian embassy requests students who are granted admissions to schedule for pre-enrolment till the end of June. The appointments are given by post and the applications are handled by Gerry’s.



While some students managed to secure appointments this March, several students who were granted admissions in universities in the month of May have failed to register for a pre-enrolment appointment. Gerry’s standard response to students since the beginning of May has been that the Italian Embassy is not entertaining any more pre-enrolment appointments. A student, who got acceptance from the university on May 7, told The Express Tribune, that while trying to schedule as early as May 8, he was among the many disappointed students to get the same response.

“I am facing extreme stress. I withdrew from a university in Pakistan and I was unable to transfer my credit hours anywhere except Italy. Three years of my life will be wasted, if Italian Embassy would not even entertain my request,” he said.

Some students have developed a page on a social networking website to express their concerns about whether or not they will be able to make it to Italy in time for the start of the academic session.

Some students had posted that middle-men were charging as much as Rs0.8 million to assure pre-enrolment appointments with the concerned officials. As the universities deadline to obtain the pre-enrolment document is June 30th, some distressed students have even explored this avenue, and have been robbed of their money in the process.

Italian head of Chancery Ubaldo Ciavaglioli told The Express Tribune that his embassy was trying its best to accommodate as many students as it could.

The diplomat assured that the pre-enrolment appointments were open till the end of this month, saying the embassy was eager to send students, however verifying documents and assuring that all documents were legit, was time consuming.

He said that while the embassy was entertaining as many as 50 to 60 pre-enrolment appointments, due to the increase in demand, they were in a process to develop a more effective mechanism to address as many as 80 to 90 per week.

About the applications, Ciavaglioli said that the embassy was in direct contact with the universities who accept students. However, during the pre-enrolment process they had witnessed an increase in the number of students applying with fake academic documents.

He mentioned that out of 300 IELTS results submitted, the embassy discovered that 70 per cent were bogus. Ciavagliolo said that two years ago, out of 0.1 million applicants a total of 50 students went.

With each passing year, as the process streamlines the number of eligible students is on the rise. A total of 250 students went to Italy last year for higher education, Ciavaglioli said.

“We are developing a mechanism to address the hitches and increase the number of students being sent to Italy,” he said.

Italian Ambassador Adriano Cianfarani said that the mission was in favour of encouraging more students to study in Italy.

“We have always received great feedback from universities in Italy about the quality of students that go from Pakistan.”

The ambassador said that efforts were being made to further streamline and improve the system to facilitate and welcome more students to study in Italian universities.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 24^th, 2014.