UK Prime Minister David Cameron reaffirmed today that the newly elected Conservative majority government will shut more bogus colleges and look to toughen English language requirements for foreign students.
This announcement comes alongside the latest UK net migration figures released this morning that show net migration reached 318,000 in 2014.
“I just felt that it is totally unfair the way that the government has picked on international students”
Overall a total of 641,000 people moved to the UK, with 323,000 emigrating abroad.
In his speech this morning, the Prime Minister said that the country needs a “tougher, fairer and faster” approach to reducing this figure, announcing that illegal immigrants need to be rooted out and deportations increased.
He added that the government must go further in stamping out immigration abuse, and being “more robust” with educational institutions that have high rates of students overstaying their visas.
The current net migration figure is now over triple the Prime Minister’s target of under 100,000, which he set before the 2010 election.
It is also the highest it has been since 2005, despite the Conservatives’ efforts to reduce it.
However, there has been an ongoing call from the sector to remove international students from the UK’s net migration figures, in order to prevent the government from targeting those who come to the UK for study purposes.
A petition was set up six months ago on the campaigning site, 38 degrees, to lobby Theresa May to bring this into action.
According to Peter Hayes, Director of Marketing and Compliance at International House Manchester, who set up the petition, it has attracted over 2,000 signatures since Tuesday.
“I just felt that it is totally unfair the way that the government has picked on international students as a vehicle to try and demonstrate how they’re being tough on immigration,” he told The PIE News.
“I just thought it was totally unfair and totally unjustified. And the disregard for the damage they were doing to the industry and to the country.”
New research shows that international students at London universities alone contribute a net £2.3bn and support 70,000 jobs.
However, Cameron argued that this cohort would not be affected by the proposals to reduce the net migration figures.
“None of these measures will stop us from rolling out the red carpet for the brightest and the best, the talented workers and brilliant students who are going to help Britain succeed,” he said in his speech.
“As I’ve said before: no cap on the number of overseas students who come and study at our universities.”
