Chandigarh, February 1
Baffled by multifold increase in number of applications for student visa under Tier 4 of the points-based system, the British High Commission and its UK Border Agency — overseeing visa work — have refused to set any date for restoring normal visa service for students from north India.
“We will resume Tier 4 services as soon as possible. But prior to any decision, an evaluation will be done by month-end,” said British deputy high commissioner Nigel Casey, revealing 13,500 applications were received during the October-December quarter last year, against 1,800 and 1,200 for the corresponding period in 2008 and 2007, respectively.
Notably, the restriction indirectly suggests that no more students from the region were welcome till the start of the next academic session. The phenomenal increase witnessed in the last quarter and January could be for any reason, including misuse of the Tier 4 students’ visa or even diversion of Australia-bound student traffic to England.
Accompanied by UK Border Agency’s regional manager Charlie Molloy, Nigel Casey held that education links between India and the UK were a vital part of bilateral relations. “We are keen that Indian students should continue to study in the UK. But some applicants are attempting to abuse our visa processes and we will not let this happen,” he asserted.
Neither Nigel Casey nor Charlie Molloy could tell the number of student visas given to Indian applicants during the October-December
quarter of 2007, 2008 and 2009 to corroborate their claim that increased number of applications had resulted in corresponding increase in number of visas. They also could not give the figures of applicants who had abused the Tier 4 system.
Maintaining that efforts were on to streamline the system, the visiting British officials said presently there were about 2,000 licensed educational institutions in UK, of which nearly 100 were suspended pending investigation.
“Students are advised to conduct proper research before deciding to apply for admission. Those taking admission to a public-funded university or institution should not worry,” the duo said, holding that acceptance of applications had only been suspended at Chandigarh, Jalandhar and Delhi centres. Thy admitted that the unprecedented rush of applications from these three centers not only put an additional burden on the existing staff, but also made them cautious as October-December was otherwise a lean period for admissions.
However, the officials did not answer queries about harassment of genuine students who even after going through the grill of visa processing were put to hard times on landing in the UK as they are told that college to which they had been admitted had either been suspended or blacklisted. No alternate was offered to them. Such students had to sulk and wait for months together to get their fee (deposited in advance) refunded, thus jeopardising their chances of seeking admission elsewhere.
