Visa problems facing English Language schools

Reference is made to Melvyn Mangion's letter (The Sunday Times, March 29).

The Federation of English Language Teaching Organisations Malta (Feltom) maintains that Malta is experiencing a loss of students because of visa problems.

We acknowledge that the Foreign Ministry's policy of granting temporary residence permits to people studying in Malta for more than three months is working well for those who meet the set criteria. But a few points still need to be improved, such as asking students who have already paid for their entire stay to have €48 for every day in Malta in their (or their sponsor's) bank account.

Feltom would like the authorities to look into the issuing of visas to prospective students. We understand the need for the necessary checks to be made, but the reduction in numbers over the last year (these are not due to the global economic problems) indicate that the system is simply not working well enough.

Mr Mangion seems to imply that schools "which opt to market their services in regions where illegal immigration risks are high" are likely to have problems with their visas. Statistically, most of our EFL students come from Schengen states. It is understandable that Maltese schools look for new markets outside this area.

It has now been brought to our and the authorities' attention by foreign language travel agents that a number of Commonwealth of Independent States' (CIS) citizens are being refused a visa to Malta but still get 90 per cent acceptance in other Schengen states.

Official statistics show that the UK (even if not a Schengen state, the UK surely applies strict entry regulations, and is a major competitor of Malta's EFL industry) refused only 12.2 per cent of the applications for the Russian Federation and other CIS states considered by Malta as potential risk-posers.

Feltom agrees that students should be interviewed when applying for a visa. However, one can hardly claim that travelling to Beijing from Vietnam, for example, is of "little inconvenience". Malta has struck an agreement with a number of Italian and Austrian consulates in many countries and there should be no reason why this cannot also be done in other countries. We hope that clearer regulations are set up to improve the situation as soon as possible.

We confirm that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has met with Feltom to discuss the problems affecting students. However, it is fair to say that Feltom has been making the same claims for over a year and it does not appear that the situation has improved.

The Maltese consulate in Turkey only became official last week despite promises that this would have been open by April 2008. Turkish agents have, in the meantime, redirected their Maltese trade to the UK or Ireland due to the difficulties encountered in obtaining visas for Malta. Years of marketing in Turkey now appear to have been wasted due to the Turkish agents' loss of faith in their clients getting visas to Malta.

We understand that there are Schengen rules to be followed but we cannot continue to lose business to delays in improving a system which is working well for other countries.

According to the most recent statistics, English Language tourism constitutes 13 per cent of Malta's total bed nights. We believe we can increase this percentage. We thus look forward to our forthcoming talks with the relevant authorities to improve the situation.