Audio: MP Damian Green says UK has too many foreign students
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by political editor Paul Francis
The number of foreign students coming into the UK needs to be
curbed and cannot be sustained, the immigration minister and
Ashford MP Damian Green has said.
Mr Green said the government planned to tackle the issue after
figures indicating that one fifth of students admitted to colleges
were still in the UK five years after being granted visas.
Home Office data tracking non-EU migrants coming into the
country in 2004 found that the largest group were students.
Of the 185,000 granted visas, 21 per cent were still here after
completing their studies.
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Mr Green said he was concerned the figures suggested that
academic studies were being used as a way for immigrants to settle
permanently in the country.
Audio: Damian Green warns
of too many foreign students
"Half of those who come here are not doing university courses,
so they are not what most people would think of as students.
"I want to look much harder at those who are using the student
route to come here to make sure that everybody who does come here
is doing a legitimate and beneficial course at a proper
institution."
He added
that the problems were not primarily caused by universities but
other colleges.
"We need to make sure there are no bogus colleges but we also
need to make sure that the right courses are being offered to
benefit students.
"We also need to crack down on dodgy agents who are using the
student route to get people here.
"We need to end up with a system that is not necessarily tougher
but one that is smarter than the one we have."
Monday, September 06 2010
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