Universities in China’s northeastern provinces lifted entry bans on South Korean students two years after they were enforced amid the COVID-19 pandemic. 

According to the South Korean Consulate General in Shenyang, Liaoning Province and the association of South Korean students in the three northeastern Chinese provinces on Friday, Koreans may now return to the schools in the region from the upcoming spring semester. 

Some 60 students enrolled at Harbin University of Science and Technology and other South Koreans studying at colleges in the three provinces, which include Heilongjiang and Jilin, are reportedly preparing to return to the campus. 

Lee Jae-young, the head of the South Korean students’ association in the region, said seven out of the eight universities with Korean students in the three provinces have allowed them to return. 

Since 2020, around six-thousand South Korean students in the region, including three-thousand-600 taking short-term language courses, were banned from attending in-person classes and instead had to take classes online. Around 700 of them have reportedly quit the schools amid protracted anti-viral measures in the region.