As part of immigration reforms announced on Monday through an Immigration White Paper, the British government has cut the Graduate Route visa duration from two years to 18 months and introduced tougher conditions for transitioning to work visas in the UK.
The changes are targeted at what officials have described as “systemic abuse and mission drift” within the student, asylum, and family visa categories.
“Migration must be controlled and compliant. Our reforms will close the back doors and shut down abuse across the system,” the Home Office stated on its website.
The Graduate Route, initially introduced to give international students an opportunity to gain work experience in the UK after graduation, will now face tighter scrutiny. According to the document, “The Graduate Route has not met its original objectives. It has become a loophole for unsponsored work and a magnet for abuse.”
Read also: UK pledges to foster good relationship with Nigeria despite immigration reforms
Under the new measures, only higher institutions that meet “enhanced compliance standards” will be allowed to recruit international students. Schools with poor progression-to-work statistics or those found guilty of misleading recruitment strategies risk losing their sponsorship licenses.
Meanwhile, this development is expected to hit Nigerian students hard. In recent years, they have consistently ranked among the largest cohorts of international students in the UK.
