A decline in the number of student-dependent applications and student visa applications has been noted in the United Kingdom in the first three months of this year, as a result of new legislation introduced at the beginning of this year.
Statistics from the UK’s Home Office reveal that student visa applications declined by 79.5 percent in the first quarter of this year with a total of 6,700 applications registered compared to the same period of 2023 during which period 32,000 applications were registered, VisaGuide.World reports.
In order to reduce the number of migrants to Britain, authorities in the UK have applied new measures since January this year. Among the changes was preventing most international students from bringing along their family members except for those on research courses.
The Home Secretary, James Cleverly, said that the UK is committed to attracting the brightest and the best to this territory.
Therefore, our intention is to work with universities over the course of the next year to design an alternative approach that ensures that the best and the brightest students can bring dependents to our world-leading universities while continuing to reduce net migration. We will bring in this system as soon as possible, after thorough consultation with the sector and key stakeholders.
A total of 135,788 visas were granted by authorities in the United Kingdom last year to the dependents of foreign students, thus marking an increase of over 700 percent compared to 2019 statistics. The surge in the number of visas was described as unexpected by the Home Secretary.
UK Set to Meet International Education Strategy Commitments
Previously, the Home Secretary James Cleverly said that the government was committed to meeting its International Education Strategy.
The Strategy was introduced first in 2019 in a bid to attract a total of 600,000 foreign students by 2030. In 2021/22 there were a total of 679,970 international students registered at the UK’s higher education institutions, according to the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA).
A report from agency group IDP Education revealed previously that the UK, Australia and Canada are attracting fewer international higher education students compared to the United States.
The decline was mainly attributed to the changes made by these territories to their policies.
IDP Connect Chief Executive Officer, Simon Emmett, said that the latest results reflected the impact of the recent policy changes applied, stressing that governments in the UK, Australia and Canada are required to provide clarity on international student policies to carry on the competitive advantage they have in this global industry.