Flaws in UK’s student visa system

United Kingdom, December 8: The current student visa system of Britain suffers from serious flaws and calls for immediate amendments in the immigration rules.

This was revealed by a chief government adviser of United Kingdom. The current immigration rules, which were meant to reduce the number of fresh arrivals in the country, are proving just to the contrary.

Not only this, the reporters of a famous newspaper in UK have revealed that there are several scams being offered to the non-citizens to immigrate to Britain as bogus students.

As a result, a large number of bogus students, nearly thousands of them, are being provided student visas revealing serious loopholes in the immigration rules of the country. And this has created a huge backlog since current immigration rules leave immigration officials with no power to decline visas to the fraudulent applicants.

As per the reporters, there are several other fraudulent means being used to gain student visas. This is being done to exploit the new points-based immigration rules.

The chairman of the Migration Advisory Committee of the Home Office, Professor David Metcalf, said he was really baffled and stunned by the number of fake or bogus universities in the country inviting students for degree courses. He felt an immediate need for a thorough review of the student visa immigration rules.

Meanwhile, the review of the immigration system is already being reviewed after the Prime Minister Gordon Brown found flaws in the system.

The situation seems to be worse and has raised serious concerns about the points-based immigration system. No wonder, a large number of foreign nationals from countries including Philippines, China and India are getting student visa under the current immigration rules.

The points-based system (PBS), which was devised by the former immigration minister Liam Byrne, came into force in March this year. As per this system, students need 40 points to gain entry into Britain, which seems quite easy for them since they receive 30 points for joining a course in a college/university in Britain and 10 points are received by proving their ability to pay the course fee and support themselves in UK.

Meanwhile, the immigration minister, Phil Woolas, asserted that, “Before we tightened controls around 4,000 UK institutions were bringing in international students, this has been reduced to around 2,000.

"We continuously monitor our systems and where improvements can be made we will make them,” he reiterated.