Recently, the United Kingdom government came out with a new set of immigration rules that ban foreign students from bringing their families over to that country.
The government said the number of visas issued to dependents coming to Britain with international students had increased eight-fold – up from 16,000 in 2019 to 136,000 last year, 2022.
Under current graduate visas, master’s students can bring their partners and children with them and they can stay in the country for two years after completing their courses of study.
The new laws have removed some part of this right as the ban will apply to those studying many post graduate courses, but not PHD students.
The government said that maintenance and attendance requirements will also be reviewed under the plans with the new restrictions set to apply to overseas students beginning courses after January 2024.
In a written ministerial statement, Home Secretary Suella Braverman said: “We are committed to attracting the brightest and the best to the UK.
“Therefore, our intention is to work with universities over the course of the next year to design an alternative approach that ensures that the best and the brightest students can bring dependents to our world leading universities, while continuing to reduce net migration. We will bring in this system as soon as possible, after thorough consultation with the sector.”
She added that the new rules include; removing the ability for international students to switch out of the student route into work routes before their studies have been completed;
Steps to clamp down on “unscrupulous education agents who may be supporting inappropriate applications to sell immigration not education, and better communicating immigration rules to the higher education sector and to international students; and improved and targeted enforcement activity.
But a member of the United Kingdom Parliament, Carol Monaghan, kicked against the new visa policy, and said it was obvious that students made valuable contributions to the UK’s economy.
According to her, international students enriched the UK’s society in all sectors, including healthcare.
It is an uncontestable fact that Nigerians hold education in high regard because it has proven to be a consistent leveler and equalizer in the country and even beyond.
Many have risen from the gutters to prestigious statuses due to the education they acquired and so, Nigerians prioritize education even when they migrate to other countries.
An article published by the Financial Times of London, to commemorate Nigeria’s 60 years independence anniversary, said a strong desire to succeed in life, enabled by education, is largely why in 2016, the continent’s most populous nation sent the largest number of African students abroad — 95,000 — and ranked fifth in the world in terms of overall number of students in foreign study; the UK and US were among their top destinations for Nigerian students, according to figures from UNESCO.
Available record indicate that Nigerians in the diaspora have distinguished themselves as highly-educated achievers in music, medicine, business and corporate enterprise, sports, music, education, and other diaspora economy.
Examples abound of Nigerians who are contributing to the growth of the country. In all the sectors including politics, Nigerians have consistently proved that they have much to offer to their host country.
We are, therefore, miffed that the UK Government will take this decision without taking into consideration the role and contributions of these students, and by extension their families to their economy.
Nigerians and, indeed, other Africans are contributing to the overall growth and development indices of the country, even taking on jobs that their own people consider beneath them.
We find it rather strange that the UK government tends to ignore and downplay their importance by this overreaching ban on their families.
People have different reasons for emigration and because the human spirit is indomitable, mankind would always seek ways for a better life outside the confines of their own natural space.
Whether it is the Italians, Jews, the Polish, the downtrodden English, or the unfortunate Irish famine victims who all fled to the shores of the United States of America or Nigerians who took advantage of the opportunity offered by the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 to settle in Ireland or those that undertake perilous journeys through the Sahara desert and the Mediterranean sea to reach Spain or Italy; we all seek a better life.
However, this is a wake-up call to our leaders and government to rise up to their responsibilities and develop the country, especially sectors that provide services, training and development like health and education.
Those sectors should not be allowed to continue to rot as concerted efforts should be made by the incoming administration to revamp them , which, we hope, in turn , will begin to yield multiple dividends, which will, hopefully, stem the Japa Syndrome .
