New UK points-based system checks lead to closure of 140 colleges
January 26 2010 by Liam Clifford
The government announced yesterday that over 140 colleges in the UK have been shut down as a result of the new points-based UK immigration system.
The new tougher UK immigration rules for the distribution of UK
student visas was introduced in March 2009. Since then, any education
institution that wants to welcome overseas students must become certified and
can then sponsor foreign students to study in the UK.
Previously, some
4,000 institutions allowed foreign students, but this has now fallen to just
2,000. Lord West of Spitfield, the security minister, explained, "in the last
six months we have carried out around 600 inspections, suspending 140 and
revoking 15 tier four licences."
He went on to explain to opposition
critics of the new system, “we have a team that go and inspect them. They look
at whole areas of the quality of the courses they are doing, we make sure they
are aware of what they have to do in terms of if students leave that college
where they go. There have been bogus ones but we are taking enforcement
action."
He added that the report into Tier 4 of the UK points-based
system would be completed shortly.
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