Thousands of overseas students to face compulsory interviews

guardian.co.uk |by Alan Travis on July 8, 2012

The interviews form part of a new UK Border Agency drive to filter out abuse. Photograph: Frank Baron for the Guardian

More than 10,000 overseas students who apply for visas to study in Britain are to face compulsory interview tests as part of a new UK Border Agency drive to filter out abuse.

UKBA staff are to be given a new power to refuse entry to any overseas students whose credibility remains in doubt after being interviewed. Those who fail to turn up for the interview will also be refused entry to Britain if they fail to give a reasonable explanation.

The decision to tighten the regime for overseas students comes as David Cameron is reportedly considering changing tack and removing foreign students from the official net migration count, after mounting fears that the government’s approach is damaging the £8bn-a-year industry.

The latest figures from the Office of National Statistics show that net migration to Britain remains at a record high of more than 250,000 a year. Ministers have pledged to reduce that figure to below 100,000 by the time of the next election.

Coming to study is the most common reason given by those who migrate to Britain, and overseas student migration forms the largest component in the annual net migration figure.

The immigration minister, Damian Green, has rejected the universities’ argument that students are not migrants and should be excluded as “fiddling the figures”, but according to the Sunday Times report, Cameron now accepts that there is a risk that overseas students are turning their backs on Britain.

“The prime minister understands these arguments and is definitely considering a change of policy,” it reports.

The targeted overseas student interview programme, which is due to start on 30 July , will result in 10,000 to 14,000 applicants for student visas interviewed each year – about 5% of those who apply to come to Britain from outside Europe.

The programme follows a pilot scheme run last year under which more than 2,300  students visa applicants from 47 countries were interviewed at 13 overseas posts by consular officials.

UKBA officials turned down 17% of the applications on existing grounds, such as not having basic conversational English. But they said they could have potentially refused a further 32% of those interviewed on the grounds that their credibility as genuine students was in doubt, if they had had the power.

The Home Office says the highest levels of would-be refusals on credibility grounds were found among applicants from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Burma, Nigeria and the Philippines. It is expected that the interview programme will be targeted on those who apply for student visas from those countries.

Green said: “With more interviews and greater powers to refuse bogus students we will weed out abuse and protect the UK from those looking to play the system.

“Under the current system UK Border Agency officers are unable to refuse some applications even if they have serious concerns over the credibility of the student. We are toughening up the system to keep out the fraudulent and unqualified while ensuring genuine students benefit from our country’s excellent education sector.”

The immigration minister said while Britain would remain open to the “brightest and best” the message was clear: “If you lie on your application form or try to hide your true motivation for coming to the UK then you will be found out and refused a visa.”

Student visa rules cost universities millions, MPs told

guardian.co.uk |by Jessica Shepherd

• Jessica Shepherd, education correspondent
• guardian.co.uk, Monday 14 May 2012 14.40 EDT

The London School of Economics is spending at least £250,000 year trying to comply with the student visa rules. Photograph: James Barr for the Guardian

Universities and colleges are spending millions of pounds to navigate the government’s “Kafkaesque” new student visa rules, a committee of MPs has been told.

An institution such as the London School of Economics spends£250,000 a year trying to understand regulations governing the entry of non-European Union students, the public accounts committee heard.

Medium-sized colleges have had to recruit more than a dozen members of staff each to ensure they are correctly complying with the rules, which were introduced in 2009 and significantly changed by the coalition last year in an effort to crack down on bogus colleges.

MPs are investigating the issue of student visas after a report published in March by the National Audit Office found serious errors in the way the UK Borders Agency (UKBA) implemented the changes. Margaret Hodge, who chairs the committee, said the report was the most shocking account of poor management leading to abuse she had ever seen.

The Guardian has found that scores of genuine students are being left stranded and penniless as bona fide private colleges close down, unable to keep their businesses going with ever more stringent regulations.

Simeon Underwood, academic registrar at the LSE, told the MPs his institution was spending at least £250,000 year trying to comply with the rules. Five years ago it was spending £50,000 a year.

Non-EU students were a major part of the LSE’s student population and it could not afford to take risks when complying with the rules, he said. The consequences of not being able to recruit non-EU students would be enormous, Underwood said, and so the university felt pressured to spend money navigating the rules at a time when ministers wanted higher educationto spend less time on administration and more on the quality of the experience students received.

Under the rules, institutions must have what is known as highly trusted sponsor status to recruit non-EU students. Underwood said because of the rules LSE had seen applications from south Asia drop by 20%, and Chilean students now thought UK higher education was“no longer open for business”. He described the system as Kafkaesque.

Timothy Blake, principal of the London School of English, said his college had to have 16 staff who needed to understand the rules. “The rules have gone too far,” Blake told MPs. “Legitimate students are being seriously affected by rules designed to take out bogus students.”

The MPs also heard from Jeremy Oppenheim, temporary migration lead for the UKBA, who said the previous system of student visas had been “profoundly unregulated”. “We didn’t know where students were once they arrived,” he said.

A report by the Institute of Public Policy Research has claimed that the government’s refusal to exclude international students from its drive to reduce net migration is damaging British education and putting at risk £4bn to £6bn a year in benefits to the economy.

Up To 50,000 Migrants ‘Exploited Student Visa Flaw To Work In UK’

BBC |March 27, 2012

Up to 50,000 migrants may have exploited flaws in a new student visa system in its first year to come and work in the UK, a report by Whitehall’s spending watchdog says.

Under a system introduced in 2009, each student must be sponsored by a licensed college and cannot change institution without gaining permission.

But “key controls” had not been put in place, the National Audit Office found.

The Home Office said “tough new rules” were cutting student visa numbers.

Under the previous system, there was no limit on the number of non-European Economic Area students a college could enrol and students were free to move college and course without notifying the UK Border Agency.

The replacement, brought in by the Labour government, states that each student must be sponsored by educational institutions licensed by the agency and cannot change college without applying to it.

‘Low priority’

Colleges are responsible for judging people’s intentions to study.

But the audit office said the system had been brought in “before the key controls were in place” and that “in its first year of operation, between 40,000 and 50,000 individuals may have entered the UK… to work rather than to study.”

It added: “The agency did not check that those who entered the UK as students were attending college.”

The report continued: “The agency has taken little action to prevent and detect students overstaying or working in breach of their visa conditions because the agency regards them as low-priority compared to illegal immigrants and failed asylum seekers.”

The agency has removed 2,700 students since 1 April 2009, but the audit office said it had “been slow to withdraw students’ leave to remain in the UK, where it has cause to do so”.

“This has meant that, in many cases, enforcement teams have been unable to arrest students found working and not attending college.”

Addresses for almost a fifth of more than 800 migrants wanted by the agency were found in just one week at a cost of £3,000 by a contractor hired by the watchdog.

Amyas Morse, head of the audit office, said the flaws in the student visa system had been “both predictable and avoidable”.

He added: “Action planned by the agency to ensure that those with no right to remain in the UK are identified and required to leave must now be pursued more vigorously.”

‘Beginning to bite’

Labour MP Margaret Hodge, who chairs the Commons Public Accounts Committee, said: “This is one of the most shocking reports of poor management leading to abuse that I have seen.

“The agency needs to get a grip and fix the way it deals with student visas.”

But immigration minister Damian Green said: “This government has introduced radical reforms in order to stamp out abuse and restore order to the uncontrolled student visa system we inherited.

“These include tough new rules on English language, working rights and dependants to ensure only legitimate students come to the UK. New restrictions on post-study work mean that all but the very best will return home after study.”

He added: “These measures are beginning to bite, we have already seen the number of student visas issued drop considerably in the second half of 2011, compared to the same period in 2010.”

Nicola Dandridge, chief executive of Universities UK which represents vice-chancellors, said “good progress” had been made tightening up the system, but there was evidence that legitimate students were being deterred from applying.

“There are some very significant dips, particularly from the Indian sub-continent, where there appears to have been a very negative message which is going out, which is that genuine students are not particularly welcome in Britain and that’s what we’re really concerned about,” she told the BBC.

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of the Migration Watch UK campaign group, called on the government to reintroduce interviews for all prospective students “to weed out bogus applicants before they come to Britain, as the Americans and Australians are already doing”.

Six Scottish Colleges Face Ban On Recruiting Foreign Students

BBC |March 15, 2012

Six Scottish colleges are facing a ban on the recruitment of foreign students after failing immigration rules.

The colleges in question are seeking urgent talks with the Home Office after they were stripped of their trusted sponsor status.

The UK Border Agency (UKBA) said applications from the colleges did not meet the current criteria.

The institutions involved include Anniesland, Stow and Cardonald in Glasgow, along with Motherwell College.

The UKBA is cracking down on colleges which it fears may be getting used as a front for illegal immigration.

The government agency regularly checks on the sponsors of students, and can suspend the licence of a college if it believes it is not fulfilling its duties.

The recruitment of overseas students represents a way for colleges to increase their income, with approximately 2,500 students from outside the EU currently enrolled in Scotland.

Urgent discussionsSome estimates suggest these students can bring in as much as£15m a year in fees.

The move comes at a particularly sensitive time as from next month, only those with highly trusted status can recruit overseas students.

Scotland’s Colleges, which represents college principals, confirmed it was seeking urgent discussions with the Home Office.

John Spencer, the organisation’s convener, said: “It is easy to understand why these rules exist, but it is nonetheless the case that they end up discriminating against colleges in Scotland.

“The loss of highly trusted status damages the reputation and prospects of the institution in attracting students to study with them.”

The UKBA confirmed to BBC Scotland that Cardonald College in Glasgow would not be able to submit another application with regards to trusted sponsor status until September this year.

It refused to comment on the situation with regards to the other colleges involved.

A spokesperson for Anniesland College said it did not currently have trusted sponsor status, but that this was due to an application and not as a result of an inspection.

The college added that it was currently working with the Home office and the UK Border Agency.

SNP MSP Sandra White met representatives from Scotland’s Colleges to discuss how they had been affected and is writing to Culture Secretary Fiona Hyslop on the matter.

Ms White said: “Colleges are worried this is going to impact negatively on their international reputations.

“For some, the loss of highly trusted status for these institutions is devastating.”

The National Union of Students Scotland has demanded that colleges affected by the UKBA decision quickly provide information and support for their international students.

Robin Parker, NUS Scotland president, said: “The reports of a number of Scottish colleges losing their highly trusted status for taking in international students is incredibly worrying news.

“For those students from outside of the EU in the middle of their courses, this will be a huge cloud hanging over their heads which could harm their studies.

“The colleges involved now need to provide as much information as possible to their international students during this difficult time.”

Rayat London College In Uni Of Wales Probe Liquidated

BBC  |March 8, 2012

A London college which was one featured in an expose of visa fraud involving foreign students on University of Wales courses has gone into liquidation.

Rayat London College suspended three members of staff following the BBC Wales probe and the college was banned from enrolling new overseas students.

Week In Week Out looked into claims students were offered help to cheat their way to UoW degrees.

The University of Wales (UoW) has lodged an application with liquidators.

The college, in Heston, west London, was raided by the UK Border Agency (UKBA) in October last year after the programme broadcast a number of allegations.

The UKBA said the college would not be allowed to recruit students from overseas while its investigations continued.

Alternative centres

At the time, Rayat London College denied any wrongdoing, saying it had suspended those of its staff allegedly involved and had referred the matter to the police.

Two hundred students were studying for a University of Wales-validated degree at the college.

It says about 80 will need to transfer to alternative centres who provide equivalent University of Wales degrees, and is helping them to do so.

The announcement of the liquidators going in was published in the London Gazette.

The liquidators were called in to the college last month.