Europe News Desk!! The British government has taken such a step on Tuesday, which can affect Indians. The new changes to the student visa route, however, will not apply to international students pursuing post-graduate research such as Ph.D. According to the Home Office, the new rules will come into effect from January next year. The ban would also prohibit people from using student visas as a backdoor to work in the UK, thus cutting net migration while protecting the economic benefits students bring to the UK. Home Secretary Suella Braverman said: “We have seen an unprecedented increase in the number of dependents of students coming into the country on visas. It is time we strengthen this route, to ensure that we cut down on migration numbers.
“It’s the right thing to do to allow us to better protect our public services while supporting the economy by allowing the most contributing students to come here,” he said. The move comes after an Office for National Statistics data, due out later this week, is expected to show that net migration from June 2021 to June 2022 was more than 500,000. Nearly half a million student visas were issued last year, while the number of dependents of overseas students has increased by 750 per cent since 2019 to 136,000. There has been an eight-fold increase in the number of visas granted to dependents of international students, from 16,000 to 136,000 in 2019, according to Home Office estimates. In addition, to prevent abuse of the visa system, foreign students will be barred from the student visa route to work routes until the completion of their studies.
–IANS
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