U.K. Cutting Down on Foreign Students

Ace! NewsFlash

Britain Plans to Cut Flow of Foreign Students

LONDON — In the face of mounting concern about abuse of student visa rules by migrant jobseekers and potential terrorists, Britainsaid Sunday that it was planning an immediate tightening of its border controls that could reduce the flow of people entering the country as students by tens of thousands a year.

The new rules will apply to all applicants from outside the European Union. British officials announcing the new controls noted that the policy review that prompted the new restrictions had been ordered in November, before the airliner bombing attempt on Christmas Day 2009. They said 240,000 student visas were issued in the 2008-9 statistical year, accounting for a third of all migrants reaching Britain. They said their main concern lay in stopping the abuse of student visas by people seeking to find jobs and settle in Britain.

Still, the Christmas Day attack appeared to have had an influence. Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said that Britain regarded the thwarted attack as “a wake-up call” requiring a review of airport security measures and border controls, among other things. Home Secretary Alan Johnson, responsible for overseeing domestic security, said in a BBC interview that care would be taken not to damage “a major part of the U.K. economy,” the $8 billion to $13 billion a year generated by the education of foreign students here. But in a formal statement, Mr. Johnson said that “those who are not seriously interested in coming here to study, but come primarily to work, should be in no doubt that we will come down hard on those that flout the rules.”

The restrictions will include a requirement that students speak English well enough to pass British high school exams, not just the “beginner’s English” required previously. Applicants for courses lasting less than six months will no longer be allowed to bring family members with them, and the dependents of students on courses not leading to degrees will be barred from working. Colleges will be more tightly monitored, to eliminate the kind of fake institutions that one critic described last year as “a couple of people above a chip shop.”

The restrictions come only nine months after a major overhaul aimed at weeding out false applicants. But the new system — requiring applicants to show they have offers from approved colleges and adequate finances — was quickly overwhelmed, particularly in the Indian subcontinent, where applications soared and British officials complained that they were approving applications on paperwork alone, with no interviews.

Last week, the government halted all student visa approvals from northern India, Nepal and Bangladesh while the system was under review.

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