Major Changes proposed for Tier 4 student Route to UK from April 2010
Manpreet Singh, 09 December 2010, London
On 07 December 2010, the UK government proposed some major changes to the Adult Student Visa regime officially known as Tier 4 (General) which allows students to come and study in the UK.
The proposed changes are:
- Restrict Tier 4 largely to degree-level courses and child students by allowing only Highly Trusted Sponsors to offer courses below degree level (I.e. courses at NQF 3, 4 and 5 / SCQF 6, 7 and 8 only) to adults.
- Any Tier 4 student seeking entry to any course in the UK including English language courses of six months or more must prove English ability at level B2 (such as IELTS band 5.0 or above) through a secure English language test such as IELTS or others.
- Tier 1 (post study) visa to be closed.
- Students must enrol for a higher level course if they want to extend their stay in the UK after finishing the first course.
- They may be required to go back home and come again in case they want to study another course.
- Students can only work on-campus during weekdays and any number of hours off-campus during weekends and vacations.
- Study to work placement ratio in courses involving work placement element to be raised to 66:33 except where there are statutory requirements for the placement element to be more than 33% e.g. PGCE (Post graduate Certificate in Education).
- No permission for student dependants to work in the UK except where they qualify on their own under tier 1 or tier 2.
- Student dependants can only come in the UK if the course duration is more than 12 months
- Different evidence requirements for maintenance funds and previous qualifications for different nationalities or regions of the world. It may be based on type of sponsor such as Highly Trusted sponsor, A or B rated.
- Stricter accreditation criteria for institutions wishing to sponsor Tier 4 Students.
No changes to existing policy are as follows:
- No changes to child student route.
- No changes to student Visitor route to study courses of less than six months duration.
In our future Blog entries, we will discuss how it will impact different stakeholders.
If you are thinking of coming to the UK under the current regulation, you must act now!!
Immigration Angels can help you every step of the way to come and study in the UK. We can provide online or telephone based counselling services as well to people from all over the world. Please contact us on +44 (0)2080901930 or visit our website: www.immigrationangels.co.uk for more information.
