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Changes to student visa system could damage Bournemouth's language schools

10:23am Tuesday 9th February 2010 in


LANGUAGE school bosses in Bournemouth and Poole fear an announcement by the Home Secretary will damage the town's £200 million a year English language industry.

In a television interview on Sunday Alan Johnson MP expressed his willingness to press ahead with changes to visa requirements for international students - despite a campaign by local academies.

He confirmed their fears that students applying to study courses below degree level will now need to speak English at GCSE level before they arrive.

"It is rather like telling someone who wants driving lessons to come back and take a course once they've passed their driving test," said Clive Barrow, chairman of the local accredited schools association RALSA.

The requirement will be enforced for students applying for courses below degree level, and for degree level courses which have a work placement.

Shane Wilkinson, the owner of the Bournemouth International Business School, said a proposal to reduce student working hours from 20 to 10 hours a week would not protect British workers, who were unlikely to be attracted by casual work.

But Mr Johnson remained defiant in the face of the outcry from school bosses, and insisted the door would not be closed to bona fide students.

"We created our points based system so that we could respond quickly to changing circumstances when necessary to raise the bar students have to meet to come to the UK.

"We remain open to those foreign students who want to come to the UK for legitimate study - they remain welcome.

"But those who are not seriously interested in coming here to study but come primarily to work - they should be in no doubt that we will come down hard on those that flout the rules.

"I make no apologies for strengthening an already robust system," he said.

Comments(11)

Bournehammer68 says...
11:52am Tue 9 Feb 10

I think this makes absolute sense, surely if some-one wants to be a resident language student they would have a grasp of that language before going to the country.
Times are finally a changing, for far to long any tom dick and abduhl have been allowed to come to this country on bogus student visas.
national security must come before the business needs of a language school.

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Jonkers says...
1:27pm Tue 9 Feb 10

Oh what a shame....

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psal says...
3:45pm Tue 9 Feb 10

Totally agree with Alan Johnson. The floodgates have been open for far too long and I would bet that many of the students who come here to 'study' do not return home again. I also agree that they should not be allowed to bring their families along with them. This country has been too lenient for too long and it has not done any of us any favours.

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fedupwithjobsworths says...
6:25pm Tue 9 Feb 10

Sounds good to me

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yuw1 says...
6:28pm Tue 9 Feb 10

Unfortunately it will not only be language schools that will suffer with unemployed teachers and staff, landlords will see their accommodation empty when student numbers decline. Host families will no longer be able to depend on hosting foreign students to supplement their income and various local businesses will lose custom. Suppliers of materials (lower level coursebooks etc)will also see a slump in sales.
While there are students who do not come to 'study', there is a large number who do. Asking students to be proficient up to GCSE standard English also makes no sense, what is that? Shakespeare? being able to read 'From Mice to Men' - foreign language ability is not measured like this.
It will be a great business for English schools abroad though and perhaps for other English speaking countries. Surely this is just an excuse to show the public that the government wish to clamp down on immigration, they should concentrate on the bogus language schools and real illegal immigrants not look for a scapegoat.

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Fed up still says...
8:17pm Tue 9 Feb 10

Most of the the students are working far more than 20 hours more like 40/50 hours, before the change; a few of the Bournemouth are just clearly visa schools, we paid £1000.00 to a school just to sort out the visa and her never to go to school, she came to Bournemouth to work that how we meet!! No point the school crying now they were all at at! Most of the bars and clubs are more than happy to let them work all the hours, or they have two or three jobs. about time it was sorted

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Bad Rabbit says...
2:48am Wed 10 Feb 10

Excellent, I'd made a bet with myself that the comments board would be filled with these sorts of comments.
(honourable exception to yuw1)

Well congratulations, you're cheering on a loss of income to the town you morons.

Now all you've got to do is kill of the tourist trade and the twon will sink bank into the obscurity it had only 200 years ago!

Talk about cutting your nose off to spite your face!

Yes, you are all entitled to your opinions, the rest of us however are entitled to laugh at them.

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MJD says...
3:55am Wed 10 Feb 10

Should have done this many years ago. I learnt French and German at school. Why don't they learn in there own countries as we do. Two good points. Just think of all the part time jobs or should i say full time come available and all that extra accommodation coming free that is needed by are own.

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tangogran says...
7:42am Wed 10 Feb 10

At last, but rather too late, a small attempt to ensure there are still a few British people living in this town/country. If immigration is to be less of a problem to us we should always be putting our way of life before business interests.

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ry8000 says...
9:12am Wed 10 Feb 10

MJD wrote:
Should have done this many years ago. I learnt French and German at school. Why don't they learn in there own countries as we do. Two good points. Just think of all the part time jobs or should i say full time come available and all that extra accommodation coming free that is needed by are own.
Learning to count to 10 in another language doesn't really count. I would bet that you can't speak German or French as well as they could speak English. Additionally, it's a shame you weren't tought English at school... re-read your statement, and you might see what I mean.
Personally I think it's a big shame that we make an unwarranted knee jerk reaction to a problem. It's a lazy way of dealing with things.

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yuw1 says...
10:35pm Wed 10 Feb 10

There are many legitimate schools in Bouremouth that report non-attendance to the home office. These should not be punished for the illegal activity of the sham schools.
So 'fed up still' would like to say that the person he's/she's talking about is here illegally, not going to school and working 40 hrs a week-"About time it was sorted" you say. Is she going home now then?
Re MJD-I agree with ry8000. Unfortunately Before criticising learners shouldn't you be able to spell!! Further, if you check out the rental pages and websites, you'll find plenty of empty accommodation not taken by 'our own'. Try living in my road during the summer with all the drunk university students- the foreign students were so much quieter!

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