UK rethinks student visa policy

Each year, thousands of Chinese students apply to study abroad in the UK, but starting next year, the process these young people need to undergo to attain a visa is expected to become less inviting.

According to a speech by UK Home Secretary Theresa May, the text of which was published on the website of the UK Border Agency on December 12, an interview program will be added to the student visa application process at the start of the next fiscal year.

Students who apply for visas to study in the UK may be required to have face-to-face interviews, in addition to providing paper materials.

May gave the speech aimed at providing solutions to an ongoing immigration debate at London-based think tank Policy Exchange on December 12.

In her address, May said that many colleges in Britain were selling not an education but immigration. The student visa system has been abused on an industrial scale and the government needs to take measures to eradicate this kind of abuse from the system, she argued.

"We also take action to make sure that students who want to come to Britain really are students," May said. "So the new immigration rules make clear that if you want to study here, you have to be able to speak English, support yourself financially without working."

May announced that the UK Border Agency would "increase the number of student visa interviews to considerably more than 100,000, starting next financial year."

A staff member of the British Embassy Visa Application Center in Beijing told the Global Times that such an interview program has been implemented in China for years.

"Not all students need to have an interview. The embassy would check the applicants and only pick some students, who we think need further information, to have interviews," the employee said. "However, the student visa application indeed will be stricter starting next year. The embassy will increase the number of students who need to have interviews."

Zou Zhongtian, a senior student from China Foreign Affairs University in Beijing, is currently applying for graduate school in the UK.

Zou said that many of his friends are well prepared for colleges in the UK, and that they have taken notice of the news that the student visa application is becoming stricter. Despite the fact that this may pose a challenge for him, Zou said he understands the Home Office's motives.

"It seems reasonable for the British government to be strict with its student visa application process. The interview program may play a role in blocking fake students."

However, he regretted that students like him whose intentions are pure, and who plan to return home after graduating, will face a more complicated approval process.

"The interview program may bring some troubles to applicants, especially those who don't live in Beijing," Zou said. "It is fine for me, because I live here. But some of my friends who live in Wuhan will have to fly more than 1,000 kilometers to Beijing to have an interview if the new policy goes into effect next year."