# Foreign students: No longer have the automatic permanent residency privilege.



## PRPWarrior (Oct 12, 2020)

Foreign students who studied at South African universities and colleges under critical skills areas will no longer have the automatic permanent residency privilege, Home Affairs minister, Aaron Motsoaledi has said.

In the past, upon graduation, students could get permanent residency on the basis they were studying a critical skill.
However, South African Home Affairs ministry, through the immigration directive Number 2 of 2022, is withdrawing the blanket waiver dated April 21, 2016 in respect of graduates from South African tertiary institutions in critical skills.

“By virtue of the power vested in me by section 31 (2) of the Immigration Act, 2002, Act No 13 of 2002 (“The Act”), I hereby withdraw the blanket waiver which was granted on 21 April 2016, which waiver allowed foreign graduates at South African tertiary institution that studied towards degrees in the area of critical skills, to apply for a permanent residence permit without the need of first acquiring five years post qualification experience or the need to submit testimonials from employees,” the directive reads.

See directive attached.


----------



## Rango01 (12 mo ago)

PRPWarrior said:


> Foreign students who studied at South African universities and colleges under critical skills areas will no longer have the automatic permanent residency privilege, Home Affairs minister, Aaron Motsoaledi has said.
> 
> In the past, upon graduation, students could get permanent residency on the basis they were studying a critical skill.
> However, South African Home Affairs ministry, through the immigration directive Number 2 of 2022, is withdrawing the blanket waiver dated April 21, 2016 in respect of graduates from South African tertiary institutions in critical skills.
> ...


Hi all, I applied using this waiver on the 18th of Jan, does this mean that my application will be rejected because of this? Or does it only apply from 31 Jan ?


----------



## a4xiaoxiami (May 17, 2018)

Rango01 said:


> Hi all, I applied using this waiver on the 18th of Jan, does this mean that my application will be rejected because of this? Or does it only apply from 31 Jan ?


If you have already submitted your PR application based up the withdrawed waiver before the end of January 2022, you should be fine.


----------



## a4xiaoxiami (May 17, 2018)

Due to the high umeployment rate and stagnated economy growth, I believe this is just a beginning of many tightening immigration policies to follow in coming months.


----------



## More (12 mo ago)

This is apply to foreign graduates only or it also applies to Critical skills holders that were about to apply for the PR.

thank you


----------



## a4xiaoxiami (May 17, 2018)

It's a withdrawal of the waiver applied to foreign students.


----------



## More (12 mo ago)

a4xiaoxiami said:


> It's a withdrawal of the waiver applied to foreign students.


Thank you so much for getting back to me


----------



## dinema84 (Sep 4, 2020)

Seems things have already tightened quite significantly. The new list of Critical Skills is out and way smaller than even the draft.


----------



## Naja16 (12 mo ago)

This came out two days before I applied for PRP in the UK. I didn't know about these changes until a few days later and the VFS officials in London didn't say anything either. So my application will likely be rejected. I had been waiting to apply for the PRP using this waiver for two years while applications were closed! Very frustrating.


----------

