Currently, foreign students can stay in the UK for 2 years after graduation, but Braverman is looking to cut that to six months, after which postgraduates must hold a skilled job to be eligible for a visa extension, otherwise they risk deportation.
However, the UK’s Department for Education is pushing back on the Home Secretary’s directive due to fears that the UK could develop an unfavorable image in the eyes of migrant students who pay more for tuition than UK natives.
As of 2022, domestic student fees are capped at £9,250, while international students pay around £24,000.
According to UK news agency Daily Mail, “Ms Braverman has committed to cutting immigration and significantly reducing the number of unskilled foreign workers coming to Britain from 239,000 to ‘tens of thousands’.
Data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency shows that around 680,000 foreign students study in the UK, outnumbering non-EU EU students by 5 to 1.
This means the UK has already reached its target of attracting 600,000 people a year by 2030, set in 2019.
The Home Secretary’s decision could spell disaster for Nigerian students, who are currently the third largest international student group in the UK, behind only India and China.
In August 2022, the Daily Mail reported that the number of Nigerian students coming to Britain had risen by 686% in three years to 65,929.
Given the current unemployment problems in Nigeria and the tendency for Nigerians to move to the UK to settle for unskilled or skilled work, this new development could spell potential disaster for many Nigerians seeking employment as a means of visa extension.
However, a key part of the home secretary’s directive is to deport ex-students without skilled labour, and given the fact that the study phase is to acquire skills, this does not affect Nigerians as much as one might imagine.
The only argument against this is that Nigerians tend to engage themselves in unskilled work, and finishing tuition with the idea of settling for unskilled labor is no longer an option if nothing is available.