Policies by the UK Home Office which is affecting the foreign students and its impact on the country’s image as the education destination for the overseas students was the issue of the debate at the Study UK’s conference.
Exporting Education UK, Chairman, Graham Able, had called the UK government’s approach to the foreign students as irrational. He also said that they do not found any evidence for supporting the Theresa May’s proposal during her speech on the immigration that the universities are not bothered about whether students over stay their visas or not.
Providers discussed the impact of latest changes in the policy and also the potential changes in future.
The policy of new requirement for the universities for proving that they are capable of maintaining their financial capability if they lose their Tier 4 license for sponsoring the foreign students can prove damaging, warned public affairs and policy manager at the Study UK.
Other change that has been disputed by Home Office is increasing the requirement of the English language for studying in the UK and decreasing the visa refusal numbers. Tier 4 sponsor are permitted to keep operating to 5%.
They also said that the decrease in the rate of visa refusal limit is being talked openly by the officials of the Home Office and would come in within the next one year. They also noticed that there is a conversation of introducing the interim limit of 7-8%.
Some institutions have already expressed deep concerns over what happened in some cases has appeared to be the approach for accessing visa applications.
They also said that the universities being needed to count the students out is a likely scenario and that the sector has get prepared for this.
One of the member told that they need to tackle the issues of abuse rather than just tightening the requirements which is not going to help anyone at the end. They also told that government should understand that the objectives can be achieved with the sector’s cooperation rather than in antagonism to the sector.
