The United Kingdom’s Home Office announced on Monday the commencement of its policy to ban Nigerian students and other overseas students from bringing dependents via the study visa route.
In a post on X, the Home Office reiterated that only postgraduate research students or those on government-sponsored scholarships would be exempt from this new policy.
“We are fully committed to seeing a decisive cut in migration. From today, new overseas students will no longer be able to bring family members to the UK. Postgraduate research or government-funded scholarships students will be exempt,” the Home Office said.
The United Kingdom had in May 2023 implemented a law preventing Nigerian students and others studying in the UK from bringing family members as dependents, except under specific circumstances.
This decision aligns with the UK government’s objective to decrease immigration into the country, which currently stands at about one million.
Under the new rule, the UK will revoke permission for international students to switch from the student route to work routes before completing their studies, aiming to prevent misuse of the visa system.
Sky News additionally reported that there would be a review of the maintenance requirement for students and dependents and a crackdown on ‘unscrupulous’ education agents who exploit inappropriate applications to sell immigration rather than education.
A statement on the UK’s Home Office official site adds that the “New government restrictions to student visa routes will substantially cut net migration by restricting the ability for international students to bring family members on all but postgraduate research routes and banning people from using a student visa as a backdoor route to work in the UK.
“The ONS estimated that net migration was over 500,000 from June 2021 to June 2022. Although partly attributed to the rise in temporary factors, such as the UK’s Ukraine and Hong Kong schemes, last year almost half a million student visas were issued while the number of dependents of overseas students has increased by 750 per cent since 2019, to 136,000 people.”
The Home Office clarified that this new rule would not compromise the government’s commitment to lower overall migration, ensuring that migration to the UK is highly skilled and offers maximum benefits.
According to them, the proposal is aimed at allowing “the government to continue to meet its International Education Strategy commitments while making a tangible contribution to reducing net migration to sustainable levels. The government has also made clear that the terms of the graduate route remain unchanged.”
