Just after students from outside the EU have became the first guinea pigs for Labour’s inane and insane national identity scheme, they have been hit with more red tape from Westminster.
Students pursuing degree programmes in Britain will need to re-apply for a visa every four years, removing a guarantee that they would be permitted to stay for the duration of their course.
At a time when higher education institutions are struggling to compete internationally, this is about as welcome for British universities as Evan Harris at a Daily Mail Christmas party. Diane Warwick of Universities UK warns:
[A]lthough students will be able to apply for an extension to complete their programme they will have no guarantee that leave will be granted. This is bound to affect their decisions about whether to come to the UK in the first place.



One Comment
My girlfriend is from the US, after studying here a few years ago she is hoping to come back to do her masters degree and eventually work here.
This knee-jerk reaction to the economic downturn is beginning to make me absolutely crazy- yesterday it was tightening the rules on skilled workers coming into the country even further now its this.
People in the UK have tremendous advantages- even the worst schools in the country are able to offer education well beyond what the majority of people are lucky enough to have, and after the the state offers so much help and support through training and life long learning. People born in the UK have opportunities well beyond billions of others from across the world.
Yes the economic downturn has meant less jobs, yes it is much harder now but make no mistake about it these ever stronger rules are simply racist xenophobia- the fear of others, the wish to make their lives more difficult in the hope that somehow it will make things easier for people born here- it will not and it will further encourage those fascist morons who seek to close Britain off from the world.
It makes me sick to my stomach.