According to the official figures, there has been quite an increase in the number of students walking in to UK to pursue higher education. This is especially true for students belonging to the nations which are not under the European Union. This number has increased by more than 75,000 in the last one year. With this number was an additional of 31,000 dependents along with the foreign students.
The British government was following the Labor’s Points Based Immigration System which was brought about to make the process tougher for the unskilled migrants to move to UK. But instead, the process does not seem to be harder for the immigrants with most of them walking in with a student visa.
According to the British government, the system of student visas is being subject to significant abuse. As per the Immigration Minister, Damien Green, a through evaluation of the rules would be done.
At the same time, there are many foreign students who come to the nation to seek genuine degrees. The universities in UK also find them to be a good source of income especially when there is a cut being made in budgets pertaining to higher education. As per a recent research, about one-third of the universities in the nation are planning to increase their intake for foreign students for their undergraduate courses.
It was also found out that some of the colleges also catered to qualifications in subjects like acupuncture, ancient medicine as well as circus skills. Most of the students admitted in these courses have also received a work permit after they graduated.
On the other hand, there are about 4000 undocumented migrants who have supposed to have taken benefit of fake colleges to walk in to the nation. To this Mr. Green added that the nation is committed to bringing in the best of the students to come and study in UK. At the same time, there have been incidents in the past which could be easily said that the student visas system has been abused. So, it has to be ensured that only genuine students walk into the nation. Thus, a proper assessment would be done in the weeks to come. And relevant measures would be introduced which would stiffen the system and reduce the abuse of this system.
