The International Student Blog

The UK has announced on July 2^nd, 2012, that some international students applying for visas to study in the United Kingdom could now have “face-to-face interviews” included as part of the visa process.  Under the new ruling, “high-risk applicants” for student visas in the UK could be interviewed and asked a series of questions regarding, education, immigration, financial circumstances and their post-study plans.

The United Kingdom issues about 300,000 student visas each year and they are expecting to interview up to 14,000 in the next 12 months. Home Secretary Theresa May has said that in the past student visas were being abused and that many students were there to work instead of study. She’s announced plans to decrease the number of student visas in the United Kingdom by 80,000.

In addition to face-to-face interviews, the UK will also include a requirement that students have the ability to speak English and will limit the number of years that students can spend in the UK after their studies.

Language colleges and providers pre-university course work have expressed concerns over damage to their businesses if the new rules make it too difficult for students to enter the UK. They have been told that “pathway courses into universities will be protected, if the universities act as sponsors to students.

Click Here to read more on the article from the BBC regarding the announcement on July 2^nd, 2012.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 11th, 2012 at 4:36 pm and is filed under International Student, Student Visas in the United Kingdom, Study in the UK, Visa/ Immigration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.