New British work rules to hit Indian students hard

London: The UK on Monday announced that it will ban overseas students from outside the European Union to work while they study in the country from the next month, under tough new rules unveiled by home secretary Theresa May. The move will hit students from countries like India.

The new rules will only apply to non-EU students, who accounted for 121,000 immigrants last year. Only 51,000 of those foreign students left the UK, leaving a net influx of 70,000 and May pointed to these figures to defend her efforts for the stricter rules. She hopes to stop immigrants using colleges as a “back door to a British visa” and has banned 870 “bogus colleges” from accepting foreign students.

UK immigration minister James Brokenshire said that from next month students from outside the European Union who come to study at publicly-funded further education (FE) colleges in Britain will lose the right to work for up to 10 hours a week, reported The Times of India..

“Immigration offenders want to sell illegal access to the UK jobs market, and there are plenty of people willing to buy,” Brokenshire said. “Hardworking taxpayers who are helping to pay for publicly funded colleges expect them to be providing top-class education, not a backdoor to a British work visa. Our reforms — which include introducing English language testing, removing sponsorship rights from hundreds of bogus colleges, and restricting students’ access to the jobs market — are all of our plan to control immigration for the benefit of Britain,” he said, as the latest rules were launched in the UK parliament.

Not only will non-EU student be banned from working while they study, but they will not be able to apply for a visa when their course finishes either. As a further crackdown, the term of the student visas issued for FE colleges has also been cut from three to a maximum of two years after which they will have to leave the country. FE colleges are educational institutions operating outside the realms of a full-blown university and include a range of vocational colleges in the UK.