London
Metropolitan University has been banned from teaching overseas students,
leaving more than 2,000 undergraduates potentially facing deportation.
The London
University has had its right to sponsor students from outside the EU revoked,
and will no longer be allowed to authorise visas.
Ministers have
concerns over issues such as whether or not students are working instead of
attending courses.
A task force
has been set up to help students affected by the decision.
The UK Border
Agency said it had "failed to address serious and systemic failings"
identified six months ago.
As well as
stopping the university, which has 30,000 students in total, from accepting new
applications, losing the licence could also affect thousands of existing
overseas students at the university.
The National
Union of Students (NUS) said it could mean more than 2,000 students being
deported within 60 days unless they found another sponsor.
According
to NUS President, Liam Burns:
This decision will create panic and
potential heartbreak for students not just at London Met but also all around
the country’. ‘Politicians need to realise that a continued attitude of
suspicion towards international students could endanger the continuation of
higher education as a successful export industry.
‘This heavy-handed decision makes no
sense for students, no sense for institutions and no sense for the country’. ‘This
situation and the botched process by which the decision was arrived at could be
avoided if international students were not included in statistics of permanent
migrants’.
An
NUS survey carried out earlier this year after changes to international student
policies found that 40 per cent of foreign students would not recommend Britain
as a study destination.
The
advocacy group also said that in recent weeks they had heard from an increased
amount of students who now feel unwelcome in the UK.
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