Language courses no longer reason for granting temporary residence

Conditions for granting a temporary residence permit for foreigners who study at Slovak language schools will be tightened, claim MPs of the governing Slovak National Party last week. They managed to assert a respective amendment to the law on foreigners' stay in Parliament. It introduces a condition of age for granting a temporary residence permit for secondary school students who are citizens of third countries. It drops the possibility to gain a temporary residence permit for the purpose of studies in a Slovak language school. "This prevents a temporary residence permit from being misused by adult persons, for example, for illegal work or the migration of third countries' citizens to the Schengen zone countries," said party leader Andrej Danko. Until now, all that applicants over 18 had to do was to sign up for a Slovak language course," explained the party's vice-chair Eva Smoliková. The granting of a temporary residence permit to secondary school students, citizens of third countries, will be conditioned on their age. Full-time students of secondary schools will be able to obtain a temporary residence permit if they are younger than 20. The age limit in the case of a follow-up qualification, specialised and higher professional studies is 23 years.