Parliament News - DFES Register
Two written questions have been answered this morning, from Damian Green (Conservative Education spokesman) and Mike Weir (SNP MP for Angus and SNP spokesman on work and pensions; and energy and trade and industry) on visas and language colleges.
The first answer in particular provides a useful summary of the Government’s current plans in this area, and the second emphasises the importance of the points based system in “tackling abuse” of the sponsorship system by international students.
Language Colleges
Damian Green: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what action he has taken to prevent the setting up of bogus language colleges to enable false applications to be granted for entry into the UK. [83088]
Mr. Byrne: I have been asked to reply.
Home Office strategies include use of the Register of Education and Training Providers owned by the Department for Education and Skills (DfES), introduction of the Student Task Force to coordinate intelligence and visits to suspect institutions and changes to the Immigration Rules to prevent students remaining in the UK for long periods on low level short courses or using the student route to remain in the UK after their leave in another temporary capacity has expired.
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The DfES Register is a register of education and training providers and any education provider assessed as non-bona fide for the purposes of the rules is removed from the DfES Register. An overseas student will not be granted leave to enter or remain in the UK unless the education provider is included on the DfES Register.
Where the Student Task Force identifies a college that does not meet the bona fide requirements for the purposes of the Immigration Rules it requests the DfES to remove that college from its Register.
In the future, the introduction of the points-based system for managing migration into the UK will make the student route more robust by putting sponsorship and compliance at the heart of our processes. Under the PBS, a new register of education sponsors, building on the DfES Register, will apply more stringent requirements to educational institutions such as the responsibility to report non-attendance and non-enrolment and to cooperate with compliance visits. We will also require all private institutions to be accredited by an independent body to ensure that only legitimate institutions providing quality education enter on the new register. The Home Office and DfES are currently working on which bodies will be suitable for these purposes.
Student Visas
Mr. Weir: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people have received student visas in the last five years from language colleges that have subsequently been identified by his Department as providing false information. [89061]
Mr. Byrne: We do not keep records of students who have attended institutions that have been removed from the DfES register based on false information.
Currently student visas do not tie the individual to a particular institution. This situation will change under the points based system when education establishments will act as sponsors and we will therefore know, should we need to take action against any of the institutions on our sponsor register, exactly how many and which students they are currently sponsoring.
The introduction of the points based system also offers the opportunity for us to tackle abuse through the system of sponsorship. We will require independent accreditation of institutions wishing to recruit international students and require institutions to report those students who do not enrol or cease to attend. At present institutions do not have to report non-enrolment.
