Shyam Bhatia in London
An estimated 59 per cent of Indian students admitted to the UK last year may have been bogus applicants, a newly published study says.
The startling claim is made by London-based think tank Migration Watch UK which bases its assessment on the findings of a Home Office pilot scheme that examined student visa applications to see if they were genuine.
The Home Office scheme applied two tests to determine whether applicants were genuine students and also if they intended to return to their home countries after completing their studies.
The tests found that the highest percentage of bogus students came from Burma (63%), followed closely by Bangladesh, India and Nigeria (59%). Based on these statistics the total number of bogus students entering the UK last year is estimated at some 63,000.
“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”, said a spokesman for Migration Watch. 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 latest figures have intensified the debate about how many international students should be allowed into the UK and under what conditions, including the right to work after they graduate. Adding to the controversy is the awareness that foreign student tuition fees (£5billion) make a massive contribution to the UK exchequer.
Foreign students are also seen as making an important contribution to British business. Hence the recent call by top UK business leaders for a more flexible visa regime to attract greater number of foreign students.
These considerations have been brushed aside by Migration Watch Chairman, Sir Andrew Green, who 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.”
Commenting on the call by UK business leaders for students to be taken out of net migration statistics, Sir Andrew 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.”
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