The Home Office of the United Kingdom on Monday announced
that it had commenced the implementation of its policy banning Nigerian
students and other overseas students from bringing in dependants via the study
visa route.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), the Home Office
reiterated that only those on postgraduate research or government-sponsored
scholarship students will be exempted from the development.
“We are fully committed to seeing a decisive cut in
migration. From today, new overseas students will no longer be able to bring
family members to the UK. Postgraduate research or government-funded
scholarships students will be exempt,” the Home Office said.
Recall that in May 2023, the United Kingdom put in place a
law to stop Nigerian students, and others studying in the UK from bringing
family as dependents except under specific circumstances.
This is as the UK government aims to bring down immigration
into the country which stands at about one million.
Under the new rule, the UK will remove the permission for
international students to switch out of the student route and into work routes
before their studies have been completed to prevent misuse of the visa system.
Sky News also added that “there will also be a review of the
maintenance requirement for students and dependents and a crackdown on ‘unscrupulous’
education agents who make use of inappropriate applications to sell
immigration, not education.”
A statement on the UK’s Home Office official site adds that
the “New government restrictions to student visa routes will substantially cut
net migration by restricting the ability for international students to bring
family members on all but post-graduate research routes and banning people from
using a student visa as a backdoor route to work in the UK.
“The ONS estimated that net migration was over 500,000 from
June 2021 to June 2022. Although partly attributed to the rise in temporary
factors, such as the UK’s Ukraine and Hong Kong schemes, last year almost half
a million student visas were issued while the number of dependants of overseas
students has increased by 750 per cent since 2019, to 136,000 people.”
The Home Office also noted that this new rule was not at the
expense of the government’s commitment to the public to lower overall migration
and ensure that migration to the UK was highly skilled and provided the most
benefit.
According to them, the proposal is aimed at allowing “the
government to continue to meet its International Education Strategy commitments
while making a tangible contribution to reducing net migration to sustainable
levels. The government has also made clear that the terms of the graduate route
remain unchanged.”
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