A new TV study is to expose that Britain’s student visa system is riddled with fraud.
The undercover investigation by the BBC One’s Panorama programme,expected to be shown on Monday night, found a network of immigration agents who sell any documents required to get around the UK Home Office checks.
The agents were secretly filmed providing overseas students with forged bank documents and a pass in English language exams.
In a statement released on Sunday, British Home Secretary Theresa May announced that all English language tests, run by American-based Educational Testing Service (ETS), had been suspended for the purposes of immigration pending an investigation.
“For too long many colleges, particularly private or further education colleges, have been selling visas and not education. It is time for them to face up to their responsibilities as purveyors of education and not abuse,” she said.
Harjap Singh Bhangal, an immigration lawyer, also accused the UK’s student visa system of providing an “open free for all” for criminals, adding, “The government has created a marketplace for fraud.”
According to a research carried out by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) and published in November last year, the number of international pupils coming to the UK has decreased by 29 percent since the coalition government came to power in 2010.
The IPPR report, entitled Britain wants you!, blamed “confusing” policies by the UK’s Home Office and the government’s net migration target for discouraging overseas students from the country’s education institutions.
SSM/AB
Source Article from http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/02/10/350115/study-to-expose-fraud-in-uk-visa-tests/
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