UK University Banned for Non-Compliance of Immigration Rules

The London Metropolitan University has been temporarily banned by the immigration office in UK to recruit overseas students on grounds of not fully complying with the rules specified by the agency requiring the universities and colleges to report any foreign student who failed to start the study programme.

The basis of the ban, as told by the agency, was the failure of the university administration to duly inform the agency regarding foreign students who had failed to appear for their courses. The agency said that it was much concerned about how the university accounts the data pertaining to non-EU pupils from about 10,000 foreign students out of total 22,000 enrolled in the institute.

The rules applied on the university have been created to target bogus colleges that sponsor fake foreign students to come to UK and then disappear all the same.

The University, afterwards, clarified its position in the whole matter. The Vice-chancellor of London Metropolitan, Prof. Malcolm Gillies, confessed that there might have been a number of conditions that the university failed to comply with in informing the border agency. However, Prof. Gillies did insist on not regarding this as the only reason for such restrictions on the Alma mater by the agency and said that there were other factors.

The Professor clarified that other factors might be related to the manner of recording the analysis of foreign student’s behaviors or communicational skills, which resulted in the agency stripping the University of its ‘sponsor status’.

He also opposed the view that such a ban would spread regarding the university being a bogus one sponsoring fake students. “I don’t believe,” he said, “(that) there is evidence of London Metropolitan being a ‘ghost college’ or giving visa to people who are going to disappear. We are, however, going to have some students who don’t show up and we have to make sure that we are doing all that is required on that within the timescale.”

The Vice-chancellor also said that the University’s administration has successfully tried to rectify any such inadequacies in the accountability process since last year.

The fact that the University has been deprived of its “highly trusted sponsor status”, as the administration puts it, is enough to send an adverse impact on its financial position. The University, which last year had almost 10,000 foreign students, is not anymore at liberty to finalize the applications of its overseas students. The affect might get multiplied as this ban came in the time when the season for foreign applications is in its peak period.

The University, established in 2002, was a result of a merger between two universities, Guildhall University and the University of North London. It ranks at 114 from the list of 116 universities in the latest University Guide.

This is not the first time the immigration officers have striped an institute of its sponsor rights. Another University, the Teesside University, had also been suspended in February this year. But later in May it was reinstated with the sponsor status.

Such initiatives by the agency show that the announcements made by the government, with respect to new immigration rules and regulations, were not just baseless warnings. The country’s administration, particularly the immigration department, really means business this time, and is dead set on ridding the country of such inadequacies in the immigration system.

Tags: Guildhall University, Immigration, immigration office in UK, latest University Guide, London Metropolitan University, Prof. Malcolm Gillies, Study in UK, Teesside University, UK, UK study visa, University of North London