LONDON, Sept 6, (Agencies): Immigration Minister Damian Green is calling for tougher rules for non-EU students seeking to enrol on courses in Britain, after research found a fifth were still in the country five years after being granted visas.
In a major speech on immigration, which the coalition government has vowed to reduce, Green will say current foreign student numbers are “unsustainable”.
He is expected to outline plans for new measures that ensure only the “brightest and best” migrants enter the country to study and work.
The stricter controls are part of a strategy to slash net migration figures which ballooned under Labour.
The government believes the student visa system, like other routes into the country, apart from employment, have been open to abuse.
“We need smarter immigration controls — controls which bear down on the numbers coming and welcome those we really need here,” he will say.
“We cannot assume that everyone coming here has skills that the UK workforce cannot offer, and we will not make Britain prosperous in the long term by telling our own workers not to bother to learn new skills as we can bring them all in from overseas.”
A Home Office spokesman said the thrust of the reforms focuses on how people entering manage to switch easily from temporary residency to more permanent citizenship.
Green will pledge to look at all routes into the UK, after government figures showed only around half of student visas issued were for university courses.
Home Office research released on Monday tracked the paths of migrants who came to Britain in 2004.
The largest group given visas in that year were made up of foreign students. Of the 186,000 granted, more than a fifth were still residing in the UK five years later.
The research also found the number of visas issued to students and their dependants had risen to 307,000 by the year to June 2010.
Other routes into the UK were scrutinised. Some 106,000 work visas were issued in 2004, and two fifths of this group were still living in the UK in 2009.
In separate comments to the Daily Mail newspaper, he added that while the cap on migrants had been “controversial,” it was not in itself enough to cut net migration.
He added: “I want a student visa system which encourages the entry of good students to highly trusted institutions but which scrutinises much more closely or cuts out entirely those who are less beneficial to this country.”
Some 106,000 work visas were issued in 2004, and two fifths of this group - over 40,000 people - were still in the UK in 2009.
“We need smarter immigration controls - controls which bear down on the numbers coming and welcome those we really need here.
“We are looking at all routes and will need to set rules for each of them that give us the immigrants we need.” Green stressed that he did not want to hit universities’ legitimate recruitment of overseas students.
Later, he told the BBC Radio: “I don’t want to interfere with the success stories of our universities.” But he said there was a need to examine closely sub-degree courses and why students remained in the UK. “Why are they staying on? What are they staying on to do? This is part of a wider look we need to take at the immigration system.”