Overview

This setting controls whether the ‘Foreigner’ indicator on a student’s demographic profile is filled in automatically by Classter, and if so, which field is used to determine it. Instead of a staff member having to remember to tick or clear the ‘Is Foreigner’ checkbox by hand for every student, Classter can set it automatically based on the student’s Nationality or Citizenship, as soon as either of these fields is entered or changed.

This setting is configured separately for each institution. In systems that manage more than one school, college, or university, each institution can choose its own configuration without affecting the others.

What This Setting Does

The setting offers three options:

• None – The ‘Is Foreigner’ checkbox is not managed automatically. A staff member ticks or clears it manually on each student’s demographic profile.
• Nationality – The ‘Is Foreigner’ checkbox is set automatically based on the student’s Nationality.
• Citizenship – The ‘Is Foreigner’ checkbox is set automatically based on the student’s Citizenship.

When Nationality or Citizenship is selected, Classter relies on preparation work done in advance by an administrator. In the Nationality and Citizenship parametric (dropdown) lists, each entry has its own ‘Is considered as Foreigner’ checkbox, which the administrator sets once per entry – for example, the entry matching the institution’s own country would normally be left unchecked, while entries for other countries would be checked. A separate checkbox on the same entries, ‘Is a Resident Permit required’, is used by a different, related setting (see Section 7, Notes).

From that point on, whenever a student’s Nationality or Citizenship field is set or changed on their demographic profile, Classter automatically re-evaluates the ‘Is Foreigner’ checkbox to match the configuration of the selected entry or entries.

A student can have more than one Nationality or Citizenship recorded at the same time. In that case, Classter only switches the ‘Is Foreigner’ checkbox on when every one of the student’s selected Nationalities (or every one of their selected Citizenships) is marked as foreign. If even one of the selected entries is not marked as foreign, the student is not automatically flagged as a Foreigner – this covers cases such as dual nationality, where a student holding both a local and a foreign nationality is generally not meant to be treated as fully foreign.

If a student does not have a Nationality or Citizenship on file, the automatic update does not take place; the ‘Is Foreigner’ checkbox simply keeps whatever value it already had.

While this setting is set to Nationality or Citizenship, the ‘Is Foreigner’ checkbox on the student’s profile is shown but cannot be edited by hand, since Classter keeps it synchronized automatically; it only becomes editable again for staff if the setting is switched back to ‘None’. The same restriction applies to mass/bulk-editing tools: the ‘Is Foreigner’ field cannot be changed through a bulk edit action while the automation is active.

Where It Is Used

• Student demographic profile: the ‘Is Foreigner’ checkbox found in the Demographic Data section of the student’s record. This is where the effect of the setting becomes directly visible – the checkbox updates as soon as Nationality or Citizenship is entered or changed, and is locked from manual editing while the automation is active.
• Students list/grid: ‘Is Foreigner’ can be added as an optional column, and used as a filter (Yes / No / All) when browsing or exporting student lists.
• Demographic reporting and statistics: ‘Is Foreigner’ is one of the available grouping and filtering dimensions when producing demographic breakdown reports, alongside Nationality, Citizenship, Religion, Gender, and similar fields.
• Mass/bulk-edit tools: while this automation is active, any bulk action that would otherwise let staff manually set ‘Is Foreigner’ for many students at once is disabled, since the value is expected to come from Nationality/Citizenship instead.

Business Logic / Behavior

• The automation only takes effect when a value other than ‘None’ is selected, and only if the Nationality or Citizenship list has been correctly prepared beforehand, with the ‘Is considered as Foreigner’ checkbox set correctly on each relevant entry. If this preparation has not been done, the automatic result will be inaccurate.
• The ‘Is Foreigner’ checkbox is re-evaluated when the student’s Nationality or Citizenship field is set or changed. Simply opening or saving a student’s profile without changing that field does not, by itself, re-evaluate the checkbox.
• When a student has multiple Nationalities (or multiple Citizenships), the checkbox is only automatically switched on if all of the selected entries are marked as foreign; a single non-foreign entry among them prevents the automatic Foreigner flag.
• The two automatic options, Nationality and Citizenship, are mutually exclusive – only one of the two is used as the source of truth at any given time. An institution should choose whichever concept is more meaningful and reliable for how it distinguishes foreign students (see Section 6).
• This setting is independent from, but complementary to, a related setting that automatically manages the Residence Permit requirement using the same mechanism and the same Nationality/Citizenship configuration (see Section 7, Notes). An institution may enable one, both, or neither.
• The ‘Is Foreigner’ indicator is used for profile display, list filtering, and demographic reporting; it does not itself drive fee or tuition calculations.

Higher Education Mode vs. K-12 Mode

This setting behaves identically whether the institution is running in K-12 mode or in Higher Education mode. It is a general Student Form setting, not one of the options that only appears or changes behavior under the Higher Education configuration package.

Example(s)

Example 1 – K-12 school, using ‘Nationality’

Silverlake International School sets this option to ‘Nationality.’ An administrator has already reviewed the Nationality list and left the entry matching the school’s own country unchecked for ‘Is considered as Foreigner,’ while checking that box for all other nationality entries.

• A registrar creates a profile for a new student, Emma Carter, and selects the school’s own-country Nationality entry. As soon as this is saved, the ‘Is Foreigner’ checkbox on Emma’s profile stays unchecked automatically – no manual action is needed, and the checkbox is not editable by hand.
• Another new student, Marco Ruiz, is registered with a different Nationality entry, one for which ‘Is considered as Foreigner’ is checked. As soon as this Nationality is saved, Classter automatically switches on the ‘Is Foreigner’ checkbox on Marco’s profile.

Example 2 – Higher Education institution, using ‘Citizenship’, with dual citizenship

Alderbrook University sets this option to ‘Citizenship’ instead of ‘Nationality,’ because in its admissions process, an applicant’s current legal citizenship is considered a more reliable indicator of ‘foreign’ status than nationality of origin.

• An applicant, Wei Zhang, is registered with two Citizenship entries at the same time: one marked as foreign, and one that is not (a dual-citizenship case). Because not all of his selected citizenships are marked as foreign, Classter does not automatically switch on the ‘Is Foreigner’ checkbox for him.
• Another applicant, Li Wei, is registered with a single Citizenship entry that is marked as foreign. Since all of his selected citizenships are marked foreign, the ‘Is Foreigner’ checkbox is automatically switched on for him as soon as the citizenship is saved.
• Later, when the university’s registrar’s office produces a demographic statistics report for the new intake, it groups students by the ‘Is Foreigner’ indicator to see the proportion of foreign students among new admissions, without anyone having to tag each applicant by hand.

When to Use

When to Enable (select ‘Nationality’ or ‘Citizenship’)

• Your institution regularly enrolls both local and foreign students, and you want the ‘Is Foreigner’ indicator to stay accurate and consistent without relying on staff to set it manually every time.
• The Nationality and/or Citizenship lists have already been reviewed, with the ‘Is considered as Foreigner’ checkbox correctly set on each entry.
• You want to reduce data-entry workload and avoid inconsistent tagging between different staff members.
• You want the ‘Is Foreigner’ indicator to be available immediately for list filtering and demographic reporting, wherever Nationality/Citizenship data is already being captured.
• Choose ‘Nationality’ when your institution’s definition of ‘foreign’ is tied to where a student originally comes from.
• Choose ‘Citizenship’ when current legal citizenship is the more relevant concept for your institution – for example, where dual citizenship or naturalized citizens are common among your student population, which is typical for institutions with significant international recruitment.

When to Disable (select ‘None’)

• You prefer to control the ‘Is Foreigner’ checkbox manually for each student – for example, because your institution’s definition of ‘foreign’ depends on additional factors beyond Nationality or Citizenship.
• The Nationality or Citizenship lists have not yet been reviewed and correctly marked – enabling the automation before completing this preparation could set the ‘Is Foreigner’ checkbox incorrectly across many student records.
• Your institution rarely uses the ‘Foreigner’ distinction and does not need it to be automatically managed, or needs staff to retain full manual control (including through bulk-edit tools).

Notes

• Pre-requisite: Before selecting ‘Nationality’ or ‘Citizenship,’ review the Nationality/Citizenship lists (under the system’s Parametric Lists / Dropdown Lists configuration) and confirm that ‘Is considered as Foreigner’ is correctly set on every relevant entry. Incomplete or incorrect configuration of these lists will produce incorrect results once the setting is active.
• Pre-requisite: The automatic update only applies to students who already have a Nationality or Citizenship recorded on their demographic profile. Students without this information are not affected until it is filled in.
• Related setting: ‘The compulsory Residence Permit requirement at Student level will be automatically updated based on’ (Main Settings > General Settings > Student Form – Residence_Permit_Requirement_Is_Auto_Updated_Based_On). Uses the same mechanism and the same options (None / Nationality / Citizenship), and the same Nationality/Citizenship lists, but instead of ‘Is Foreigner’ it automatically manages whether a Residence Permit is required for the student, based on each entry’s separate ‘Is a Resident Permit required’ checkbox. It works independently of this setting – an institution can enable either, both, or neither.
• Related setting: ‘Enable Configuration for Higher Education’ (Main Settings > General Settings – Xrisi_parametropoihshs_kolegiou). Switches the institution between K-12 mode and Higher Education mode. As noted in Section 4, this setting’s own behavior does not change based on that mode.
• The ‘Is Foreigner’ checkbox itself always remains a normal field on the student’s demographic profile. When this setting is set to ‘None,’ it is fully manual; when set to Nationality or Citizenship, it is kept in sync automatically and display-only for staff.