Germany will be ready to open a place to apply for student visas in November, but students wishing to apply will need to complete additional steps.
Indian students are now required to have their academic achievement assessed by the Academic Assessment Center and obtain a certificate of authenticity before applying for a student visa. The APS certificate is required to be submitted when applying for a visa. The APS Certificate is not required for short courses but is required for courses of 90 days or longer.
Germany plans to increase the number of blocked accounts required for international students by 8.5% from 2023. According to the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the estimated annual amount that will be credited to the blocked account at the time of visa application from January 2023 is €11,208.
A blocked account with sufficient funds is one of the main requirements for international students to apply for a student visa. Over 3,000 students from India lined up for Germany in the 2022-23 school year.
German ambassador Philipp Ackermann said the move was initiated as “Up to 15 percent of the applications have fraudulent academic documents, which at times lead to genuine students getting rejected“.
The number of Indian students in Germany has tripled in the last 7 years and Indian students are the second largest group of international students in German universities. There are currently 33,753 Indian students in Germany. According to the German Academic Exchange Service, the number of Indian students who went to Germany between 2021 and 2022 was 33,753, up 18% from last year (28,542).
