‘If you want to see what’s going to happen in the UK politics, you just need to look at what happened 10 years ago in the US politics’ – It is kind of true if you look at the general pattern, and with Trump elected in the US and Brexit taking place last year. I am concerned that a once relatively more tolerant country is opting for a rather exclusive route.
One such example would be the tightening of migration policies in the UK in the context of international students.
International students are categorised as migrants as per the UN’s definition of a migrant, “a person who moves to a country other than that of his or her usual residence for a period of at least a year.”
Until 2012, the UK allowed students to stay for another two years from the conclusion of their course, for something that was called post-study work visa. Not only such a visa has already been scrapped, but the government has also started tightening the visa regulations for the international students due to reliance on unreliable stats.
International Passenger Survey estimates indicate that every year there are at least 132,000 students who come to the UK, while only 63,000 leave, leaving the rest living in the UK illegally. However, statistics published by Office for National Statistics recently found that 97% of long-term study visa holders left on time, leaving only the 3% unaccounted for.
The ONS said in its report:
“There is no evidence of a major issue of non-EU students overstaying their entitlement to stay.”
The government really needs to reconsider its attitude towards the international students for they benefit the economy significantly. Research by Universities UK shows that international students contribute £25bn to the UK economy, thereby supporting more than 200,000 jobs. And while they make up for only 14% of the student population, the fees they pay account for 29% of all tuition fees.
The number of students UK receives is only second to the US. In only, 2014-15 alone, some 437,000 students came to the UK from other countries. The number used to grow 3-4% until 2011, and is on a constant fall since prompted further by the Brexit sentiment, whereby students are choosing more welcoming countries like the US or Australia. And this goes without saying that such policies also concern the EU/EEA students who know that once Brexit is implemented, they will be subjected to such policies as well.
In order to re-establish itself as an inclusive country, Britain must remove international students from the Home Office’s migrant quotas.
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