The Department for Education in the UK is reportedly opposing the Home Office’s plans to reduce the number of foreign students in the country.
According to a report by Telegraph, The ministerial department argued that tuition fees paid by international students can help reduce costs for those from Britain, according to the report. It said a drop in foreign pupil numbers would require either more taxpayers’ money going to universities or higher tuition fees for UK students, the Telegraph said.
Starting in 2024, Rishi Sunak’s government intends to ban international students other than those on postgraduate courses from bringing their families to the UK.
Informing the policy changes, Home Secretary Suella Braverman last month said, that only international students on postgraduate courses designated as research programs will be allowed to bring their family members, such as children and elderly parents, as dependants. Apart from that, the new law also removed the ability for international students to switch to work visa before finishing their courses.
She also pledged steps to clamp down on unscrupulous education agents “who may be supporting inappropriate applications to sell immigration not education”.
The measure was put in place to pre-empt figures released which show that in the year to December 2022, net migration in the UK rose to a record level of 606,000.
Source: LiveMint
