By . House of Lords committee calls for ‘proportionate’ checks on students. Universities are resorting to “extreme measures” to make sure they do not fall foul of immigration compliance requirements, a House of Lords report has found, such as fingerprinting international students before lectures. More...
Australian immigration say student visa applications up
More than 74,000 international students applied for Australian student visas in the three months to September 2013, according to Australian immigration. This is the highest figure for four years and seems to show that Australia has recovered as a favoured destination for international students after a three year slump in popularity. Australia became extremely popular as a destination for international students during the first decade of the 21st century. In 2002, 274,000 international students began study in Australia.
By 2009, there were nearly 500,000 people in Australia with student visas. While this was welcomed by many Australians, others complained that many students, from India in particular, were using forged academic qualifications to gain entry to the country and were coming to Australia not as students but as permanent migrants. More...
China extends deadline for Carleton student to pay fine to avoid jail, deportation
By Megan Delaire. Jesse Konrad, a Carleton University student studying business in China, no longer faces immediate imprisonment and deportation thanks to help from family, friends and strangers in Ottawa. But his struggle isn’t quite over.
As of Friday, Konrad had until Monday to pay a $2,000 US fine for studying in China for 42 days with an expired visa. However, on Monday that deadline was extended by two weeks after the Konrads were able to show authorities in China they were serious about paying the fine through their use of the crowdsourcing website GoFundMe. More...
Foreign PhDs welcome Swedish visa reform bill
Sweden's migration minister wants foreign PhD students to be granted permanent residence after four years of research, welcome news for highly-skilled international researchers who have lobbied for reform.
Migration Minister Tobias Billström on Thursday announced that the government had submitted a proposed bill to the legal council, Lagrådet, which examines whether new laws are compatible with existing legislation. From there, the bill would be passed on to parliament for a vote.
If the legislation passes the Riksdag, a foreign PhD student who has spent four of the past seven years employed as a researcher will be able to apply for permanent residence. More...
Universities acting as ‘extension’ of visa authorities
By . Academics vent anger over treatment of international students.
More than 150 academics have claimed in a joint letter than universities are acting as an “extension” of government immigration authorities, and eroding the trust of their students in the process. More...
Student visas: new immigration minister ups the ante
By . The government’s new immigration minister has threatened to make it tougher for education institutions to keep their student visa licences. In a speech likely to dismay universities, James Brokenshire warned that he has “considerable concerns” about some education institutions; rejected fears that immigration policy is harming “world-class” universities as a “ludicrous fiction”; and dismissed anger from academics about the immigration checks they must mount on students. More...
Universities being used as proxy border police, say academics
Student visa collapse for India and Pakistan continues
University donations could trigger visas for investors, suggests committee
Recommendations for the reform of the Tier 1 visa route for investors have been released today by the government’s migration advisors.
The Migration Advisory Committee suggests that around 100 “premium route” visas, offering a route to citizenship in two years rather than the normal five, should be auctioned off to the highest bidder each year. Read more...
UK: Student visa fraud uncovered!
You would like to get a student visa for the UK but do not speak sufficient English? No problem, thanks to bogus documents and an amazingly well subverted student visa system your admission is almost guaranteed. A British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) documentary on student visas has unveiled large-scale fraud, involving language exam centres, UK home office approved colleges, private banks and immigration consultancies, namely Studentway Education and Bright Consultant Services.
As the biggest source of non-EU immigration to the UK, student visas account for approximately 200 000 visas issued yearly. An application and an extension of a student visa, however, requires a proof of English proficiency, an educational back record, a bank statement proving sufficient own resources, as well as a written confirmation from a home office approved college. The BBC Panorama documentary showed how all of these requirements can be met with the necessary extra money. A compulsory English proficiency exam with multiple choice answers provided by the examiner plus an English native speaker taking the oral exam instead of you can be available from GBP 500 onwards. Academic back records come as a real bargain for only GBP 250. And a bank statement proving you have more than you ever dreamt of can be purchased for GBP 250 to GBP 280, depending on whether you want to engage in identity theft or forging an official bank statement. A written confirmation of a home office approved college, however, is a bit more expensive with a price of GBP 2 500, but great discounts are offered for only GBP 1 800.
The fraud scandal has obviously spurred immense outrage. In the case of the English proficiency exams, the UK home office has temporarily suspended all English exams run by Educational Testing Service (ETS) related to immigration purposes. ETS, however, has not been directly involved in the fraud scandal, as the two institutions in questions, Eden College International and Universal Training Centre, were independent examination centres. Eden College International and Universal Training Centre likewise have denied any complicity in and prior knowledge of fraud at its institutions. The UK home office has furthermore suspended Leyton College in East London which has also been involved in the fraud scandal. The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) has meanwhile opened investigations concerning the two UK colleges in question.