UK immigration policy damaging higher education sector

John Cridland, Director general of CBI(Confederation of British Industry) says the immigration policy must be changed at the earliest.

UK immigration policy restricting best talent—The best and the brightest talent is being restricted to come to the UK, says Cridland while pointing towards the loopholes in the UK immigration policy. And such an immigration system was threatening the progress of the UK economy, he lashed out.

He spoke heavily against the commitment by the UK to bring down UK immigration levels to ‘tens of thousands’ annually from the current ‘hundreds of thousands’ by the year 2013. The pledge to limit the UK immigration level to such low figures must be dropped.

By restricting the best overseas individuals including international students and overseas workers from coming to the UK through UK’s tougher visa norms, the nation is blocking its economic growth.

Effects damaging to UK higher education sector--If the UK government does not act immediately and reform the UK immigration policy, it will have a damaging impact on the higher education sector of the nation, warned Boris Johnson, London Mayor.

Recent UK immigration norms for international students are putting off foreigners to come and study in the UK, maintained Cridland.

And this is something serious keeping in view the fact that the UK higher education sector is worth £15bn annually, he quipped.

International students significant to UK—UK needs foreign students since they contribute to the UK economy in a significant way.

However, the number of international students coming to study in the UK has already gone down by nearly 21 percent.

And any further restrictions on international students by toughening UK student visa rules will be bad. Mr. Johnson said the UK is losing a big business opportunity by shutting its doors to the best foreign students.

London employers as well as London universities are not able to recruit the talented foreign individuals due to bad UK immigration policies, the Mayor claimed. All this is not in the interests of London economy and the economy of the UK, he stated.