Indians to get more time to find work in U.K.
- Indians and other international students to the U.K. will have a longer time to find work after completing their undergraduate or postgraduate degree, under changes announced by the British government.
- The changes fall short of the two-year post-study work visa that many have been campaigning for but are regarded as a step in the right direction.
- Undergraduate and postgraduate students will now have six months within which they can find work, whereas doctoral students will have a year after their degree. They will also be able to apply for a skilled work visa three months before the end of their course, or move to skilled work for two years after graduation if they return to their home country. This is part of a package of measures to boost foreign student numbers to around 6,00,000 by 2030, from 4,60,000 in 2017-2018.
- Earlier this month, it emerged that India had once again not been included in an expanded list of countries from which students applying for visas would be subject to less-stringent documentation requirements.
- While the number of Indian students coming to the U.K. rose sharply last year, it was still well below past levels, and far below the number of Chinese students. While in the past, Britain has sought to attribute the fall in Indian students to a decade-old shake-up of the system to stamp out the problem of bogus colleges, India considers the problems far more complex, revolving in particular around what the U.K. has to offer students, compared to other countries like Germany, Australia and Canada.
- There have also been concerns around the processes involved in applying. The strategy document said the government would continue to review “the processes for conducting interviews” to ensure they were “appropriately focussed, and minimised inconvenience for applicants”.
