The UG is not allowed to report an eighteen-year-old Azerbaijani student who was at risk of losing his residence permit because he didn’t have enough ECTS to the Immigration and Naturalisation Service (IND), The Dutch Council of State has ruled.
The economics and business economics students only earned 25 ECTS in his first academic year in 2021-2022. That’s below the required 45 ECTS a student should earn in the first year to receive a positive binding study advice (bsa). But because of his personal circumstances, the faculty granted him an extension.
However, students from outside the EU also need to meet the standards of the Modern Migration Policy Act (MoMi). According to this act, students need 30 ECTS in order to retain their residence permit. The UG refused to grant the student any leniency for this particular standard, even though he used the same arguments he did for his bsa. The university informed him they’d be telling the IND that he didn’t meet the requirements.
When he came to Groningen in 2021, the student was only sixteen years old. He argued that being this young made it hard for him to adjust to his new situation. On top of that, his grandfather passed away just before the start of the academic year, he got Covid, and he is dyslexic.
The UG denied his appeal, since he didn’t supply any documents that proved the extent to which his circumstances led to his delay. However, the Council of State says the university failed to argue why the student’s circumstances were cause to grant him an extension on his bsa, but not on the MoMi standards.
Besides, the university already had the documents the student had submitted in his bsa appeal, which means the UG was familiar with them, the council said. The university now has to review the student’s objection again and make a new decision.