The new decision for international students to be barred from bringing dependants into the country won’t apply to undergrad students from India, the UK’s Deputy Foreign Minister Lord Tariq Ahmad has clarified during his visit to the South Asian country.
According to Foreign Minister, his government values the contribution of Indian students, and visa curbs only apply to students who come for one year of doctoral or research studies, VisaGuide.World reports.
His comments follow those of UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman, who recently announced changes to the existing visa rules, making students unable to bring their dependents into the country.
The introduction of such restrictive measures was made due to high immigration rates, as Braverman pointed out, while she also noted that these restrictions were aimed at stopping inappropriate applications to sell immigration but not education.
“We have tweaked visa rules for research and PhD students who come only for one year and sometimes don’t complete their research. Britain benefits from legal immigration and only wants to stop illegal immigration. Most students are from India. We want more students,” Ahmad told NDTV.
On May 25, immigration rates reached 606,000, marking a new all-time high record in the country. The same data revealed that Indian nationals were ranked on top of the skilled workers list as well as being the nationality with the most student visas issued last year.
A previous report shows that the increase in migration is driven by nationals from non-European countries to the UK, as well as refugees and visa schemes for Ukrainian nationals. People migrating for work and education purposes are also among the highest ranked in these categories.
The restrictive measure, which enters force on January 2024, also impacts postgraduate students in research-focused programs, which means that the UK Dependable Visas won’t be issued for this category next year. UK Student Visa holders enrolled in other courses are also subject to this change, meaning they are not permitted to bring their dependants into the country regardless if they are children under 18, family members, spouses, civil partners or elderly parents.
However, students from some categories are exempted from the requirement, such as those in postgraduate courses such as PhD’s and master’s programs that are research-based, meaning that those can still bring their dependables to the UK.
According to Home Office data, almost a million student visas were issued in 2022, while the number of dependants of international students was up by 750 per cent between 2019 and 2022, totalling 136,000 more people in the country.
The post Visa Rules for Dependants Won’t Impact Indian Undergrad Students, UK Minister Said appeared first on VisaGuide.World.
