UK govt to limit migration by families of overseas students; Indian, Chinese students to be hit  

UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman said in her written statement to the House of Commons that some international students would not be allowed to bring their family members into the country. This is aimed at post-graduate students, except those on research programmes.  

Students on research programmes like research-led masters courses and PhD students have been exempt from the new rules to curb net migration, according to Braverman’s written statement. Students on research programs will be allowed to bring in family members including children and elderly parents as dependants. 

Current student visa rules allow postgraduate students in courses that last 9 months or longer to bring their partners and children to the UK.  

Braverman further said in her statement the new package was necessary as around 1,36,000 visas were granted to dependants of sponsored students in the year ending December 2022. Student visas also accounted for a large chunk of the visas granted by the UK last year with 4,86,000 issued last year.  

The UK Home Secretary also pledged to take steps to clamp down on unscrupulous education agents “who may be supporting inappropriate applications to sell immigration not education”.  

She said this change in student visa rules is a part of the Rishi Sunak government’s measures to bring down annual net migration. These measures will help stop people from using student visas as a backdoor route to finding jobs in Britain.  

“Therefore, our intention is to work with universities over the course of the next year to design an alternative approach that ensures that the best and the brightest students can bring dependants to our world-leading universities while continuing to reduce net migration,” Braverman was quoted as saying by news agency PTI. 

Other measures also include reviewing the maintenance requirements for students and dependants are listed among the other new measures. She added that the terms of graduate route visa, however, remain unchanged. The graduate route visa allows students to stay on and seek work experience for three years at the end of their degree.  

The government aims to enforce these curbs “as soon as possible” after a consultation with stakeholders.  

Jamie Arrowsmith, Director of Universities UK International (UUKi) urged the UK government to work with the key stakeholders in the sector to limit as well as monitor the impact of this policy on students belonging to particular groups as well as universities that are under financial strain.  

The UUKi also welcomed the announcement that the new Graduate route visa will remain “open and competitive”. 

Foreign students, their dependants in the UK 

Indians overtook Chinese as leading nationality getting student visas of the UK. They are also leading group to access the student visa launched in July 2021. As per the official 2020-21 data, China reported the highest number of first-year enrolments at 99,965.  

While 87,405 Indian students joined as first-year enrolments, Nigeria had 32,945 first-year enrolments  in the same year. In terms of the number of dependants accompanying the students, Nigerians ranked above Indians.   

(With agency inputs) 

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