Migration Watch, an UK-based think tank has released a study that indicates that as many as 60,000 bogus students could have entered the UK in 2011
alone.
Following this pilot, the Home Office has introduced plans
to interview 10,000 students a year and has set out the criteria on which they
will be judged. But it is now clear that the government has lost its nerve and
has dropped the second test (intention to return) from the student interview
scheme which comes into force as the end of July.
The study is based on the findings of a Home Office pilot scheme which
were published last week. Under the pilot scheme applicants for student visas
were interviewed to determine whether they were genuine. This involved two
tests – whether they were genuine as students and whether they intended to
return home after their studies. The Home Office found that the highest percentage of bogus students came from Burma , where 62% would have been
refused a visa on doubts about their credibility. In Bangladesh ,
India and Nigeria , 59% of
students were considered as likely to be bogus. When these proportions were
applied to the number of applicants from each country in the pilot, it emerged
that the total came to 63,000 potentially bogus students in just one year.
Of those who were potential refusals on credibility grounds,
61% were applying for privately funded colleges, 17% for a publicly funded
college and 14% for a university.
Following this pilot, the Home Office has introduced plans
to interview 10,000 students a year and has set out the criteria on which they
will be judged. But it is now clear that the government has lost its nerve and
has dropped the second test (intention to return) from the student interview
scheme which comes into force as the end of July.
The Australian authorities – often quoted by the university
lobby as a good example of student immigration control – have this very test.
Their recent major review considered it to be “The first item of business in
assessing a student visa application.”
As for the scale of interviews, 10-14,000 a year have been
mentioned but this is only about 10% of the number of applicants from the
countries of immigration concern.
Commenting, Sir Andrew Green, Chairman of Migration Watch UK said, “We
now have clear evidence of abuse on a major scale. Bogus students come here to
work illegally and thus take jobs from British workers. If it is clear from the
circumstances that a student is unlikely to go home, the visa should not be
granted in the first place. After all, many of the advantages claimed for
foreign students depend on their going home after their studies. These half measures simply will not do. The government have
bottled out on bogus students. If they are serious about immigration they must
face down the self interested demands of the Higher Education sector and pursue
the public interest.”
Referring to the letter to the Sunday Times signed by 37
business leaders calling for students to be taken out of net migration, Sir
Andrew Green said: “It is, in fact, impossible to take students out of net
migration because, unlike the US
and Australia , we still have
no exit checks so nobody knows how many who came as students have actually left
the UK .
It seems that business leaders are clueless about immigration policy and will
sign whatever is put in front of them.”
