UK begins implementation of policy stopping overseas students from bringing dependants

The United Kingdom (UK), has commenced implementation of a new policy, banning overseas students, including Nigerians from bringing in dependents via the study visa route except those on postgraduate research or government-sponsored scholarship programs.

The Home Office of the United Kingdom announced this on Monday, on its official X handle.

“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 tweet read in part.

Under the new rule, the UK will remove the permission for international students 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 rule also said the UK would review maintenance requirements for students and dependents and a crackdown on ‘unscrupulous’ education agents, who make use of inappropriate applications to sell immigration, not 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 post-graduate 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. In contrast, the number of dependents of overseas students has increased by 750 per cent since 2019, to 136,000 people.”

The Home Office also noted that this new rule was not at the expense of the government’s commitment to the public to lower overall migration and ensure that migration to the UK was highly skilled and provided the most benefit.

According to them, the proposal aims to allow “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 clarified that the graduate route terms remain unchanged.”