Number of UK student visas issued to India and Bangladesh soars
November 23 2009 by Liam Clifford
The BBC claims that numbers of students coming to the UK to study on UK visas has risen drastically.
According to figures obtained by the BBC, the number of UK
visas being awarded to students from India and Bangladesh has risen
sharply since the introduction of the UK points based system.
Previously,
the UK Border Agency had stated that the number of students coming to study in
the UK from abroad was “roughly the same as last year.” However, the BBC has
discovered that there has actually been a tripling of the number of UK visas
awarded to students from certain countries.
Between June and August 2008,
some 6,771 UK student visas were granted by the British High Commission in
Mumbai, New Delhi and Dhaka. However, during the same period in 2009 - after the
points based system had been introduced for people applying for UK visas - some
19,950 student visas were issued by the same Indian and Bangladeshi
offices.
The points based system was introduced to increase control over
people moving to the UK from outside the EU. It has also increased security for
the issue of student visas, with stricter criteria and greater opportunities to
monitor students once they have entered the UK.
Jeremy Oppenheimer, who
runs the system for the UK Border Agency said, "the points-based system is
designed to be flexible.”
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