English language schools are planning a legal challenge against the Home Office over fears that the UK will lose thousands of jobs and £400m in income through tighter visa regulations this year.
English UK, the body representing most language schools plans to seek a judicial review of home secretary Alan Johnson's decision to prevent students with only beginner's English from entering Britain for English language courses.
The regulations, announced last month, were raised due to concerns about illegal immigration and radicalisation of students at UK institutions following the bombing attempt on a US-bound aircraft on Christmas Day by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a British-educated Nigerian.
The clampdown coincides with sharp cuts to university funding. Vice-chancellors fear that a decision in January to suspend student visa applications from large parts of the Indian subcontinent because of suspected abuse of the rules will affect enrolment numbers.
English UK, which represents 440 schools and colleges, describes the government's insistence that those who come to learn English must already be competent in the language as an absurd remark. The home secretary has not brought the changes before parliament which is claimed ‘unlawful by the association’.
The schools claim as many as 100,000 students will be deterred from entering the UK, that £400m in income and 3,400 teaching jobs will be lost, and a further £1bn forfeited in university fees because higher education institutions recruit as many as 70% of their students from among those already studying English language and foundation courses in the UK.
Many English language schools are based on the south coast, particularly in Brighton and Bournemouth. Others are in Oxford, Cambridge and London. Students come from countries such as South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Colombia, Turkey, Japan, Venezuela and Vietnam.
Restricting these students will cause a huge loss to the economy of UK and further create slump in the coming years as far as enrollments are concerned in English Language schools.
bombing attempt on US bound Aircraft is definetly an un pardonable offence but the govt should not treat all as the same .of course the visa rules must be sticter and national security is never compromised but i think the admission criteria should be modified a little bit so as to allow a stream of good students to study further.moreover it will boost university funding.the solution is to tackle the situations rather than creating a deadlock.
ReplyDeleteUK governemt may be right on it's hand but it should also think beyond that simply making the admission criteria difficult would not stop wrong elements into the country rather than this will almost slowdown education funding economy.Better they can increase security surveillance
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