The UK Home Office yesterday afternoon has moved to stop overseas students bringing family to UK in a bid to curb migration.
The move comes as official statistics are expected to confirm that net migration rose to more than 700,000 in the year to December 2022.
International students will no longer be able to bring dependents with them unless they are on postgraduate courses that are currently designated as research programmes.
The package will also remove the ability for international student to switch out of the student route and into work routes before their studies have been completed “to prevent misuse of the visa system,” the government said.
As well as removing this right, there will also be a review of the maintenance requirement for students and dependents and a crackdown on “unscrupulous” education agents “who will make use of in appropriate applications to sell immigration, not education”.
As the UK government restricts visas for family members of some foreign students, a YouTuber who advises Nigerians on studying in the UK says some are not looking for new qualifications, but to start a new life abroad.
Recording from his home in a Birmingham suburb, Emdee Tiamiyu promotes himself to thousands of subscribers as YouTube’s number one guide to “scholarships, fellowships and japa-ships.”
The last word, japa, is the Yoruba term for “to leave”, he explains. It is a buzzword among Nigerians eager to escape their country’s problems with corruption and poor governance.
“People are looking for alternatives,” he says.
“They want to escape Nigeria.”
Mr Tiamiyu offers advice on navigating immigration systems like the UK’s and says for most people the only legal and broadly accessible route is through the education system.
“The student route is more like an answered prayer”, he says. It is a “big bracket that’s able to take a lot of people, the ordinary people.”