English UK, which represents 440 schools and colleges across Britain, believes the ruling has saved an estimated “3,000 jobs and over £600mil (RM2.9bil) a year in foreign earnings.”
Chief executive of English UK Tony Millns said recently that the judgment offered schools and colleges “some immediate help since many of them faced losing a large number of students this summer and autumn”.
The changes made by the former government in March meant that overseas students had to have a good standard of English before they could come to the UK to learn the language.
“It’s clearly absurd requiring students to know English before they come here to study it,” Millns said, setting out his argument before the judgment was announced.
Students come from countries such as South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Colombia, Turkey, Japan, Venezuela and Vietnam to study in England, in schools mainly based in Brighton, Bournemouth, Oxford, Cambridge and London.
The current coalition government will now have to decide whether or not to pursue similar changes, this time putting proposals for changes to the immigration rules before Parliament.
Alan Johnson, the former Home Secretary who introduced the new regulations, said he had acted in response to concerns about illegal immigration and radicalisation of students at UK institutions.
He said it was also aimed at preventing scams involving applications from women “who had long ceased education” but who were trying to bring dependent husbands into the country. — Reuters
No comments:
Post a Comment