UK Student News and Events

I love my country and have been a supporter of our current Government. However, the Home Secretary’s announcement on Saturday of a number of new tier 4 rules and announcing that they are effective immediately has left many scratching their head, including the UK Border Agency. The new Tier 4 rules are being brought in following a review in November, to finally stop the wide-spread abuse of the UK student visa system. With 30% of migrants who come to the UK being students, one can understand the need for change. However, I think a little more thought should have gone into it. The Tier 4 new rules announced, effective immediately, are:

• A new minimum level of English is to be set at Intermediate level. This is roughly an IELTS 4.0 or TOIC 385 – 550.
• All student migrants who are studying courses below degree level will have their working rights restricted to just 10 hours per week.
• Any student migrants studying a course of less than six months will no longer be able to bring dependants to the UK with them. Migrant students studying longer courses can bring dependants, but they will have no right to work.
• All applicants of courses below degree level will now have to check if their education provider is on a new register, the Highly Trusted Sponsors List.

These new tier 4 changes follow a review begun in November 2009 of Tier 4 under the Points Based System and is expected to cut applications in 2010 by tens of thousands. These new policy announcements come amid fierce criticism of the Government for the current Tier 4 system, with political opponents claiming that the system still allows terrorists and deliberate overstayers into the UK. These new changes come amid a huge overhaul of the student rules of the Points Based System. Over 200 bogus colleges have now been shut and by 2011 the Home Office hopes to have the most sophisticated immigration system in the world, allowing people to be checked both in and out of the country. I called the UK Border Agency this morning to get clarity on the above new rules. Surprise, surprise I was told that they had no idea what I was talking about. When I said to the telephone operator that the Home Secretary had announced that the rules were effective immedielty, she told me that the UK Border Agency had been informed of nothing by the Home Office and that as far as they were aware, the old rules still stood for applicants applying under Tier 4. So, who should we believe? As soon as we find out anything more concrete, we’ll post it here. We’d like to hear from anyone who has applications pending during these changes to Tier 4 rules.