Speaking at the India launch of the report of the UN Secretary General’s High Level Panel on Women’s Economic Empowerment, British High Commissioner to India Dominic Asquith has informed today that there will be no cap on visa for Indian students. The address further mentioned that the Indian students will be free to access world-class education in the top tier UK universities across the country, with the help of 600 odd scholarships for Indian students aspiring to study abroad.
According to media reports, Asquith in his address said, “UK has no cap on visas for students from India or anywhere else. All are treated same. Whoever comes will join almost half a million international students who come in the UK.”
Government of UK, in the month of November, 2016, had announced changes to the visa policy for the non-EU nationals. It increased the Tier 2 (General) salary limit for experienced workers to £25,000 and Tier 2 intra-company transfer (ICT) category to a higher salary threshold requirement of £30,000, from earlier £28,000. Although the ICT route is used majorly by the Indian IT companies in Britain, it had made situations complicated for students to pursue their education and continue working there.
Also, the Visa rules in United Kingdom requires the students to come back home after the end of their course. India has been quite vocal against this policy and requested Britain to relax the visa rules for students in the past. According to media reports, the strict norms in visa has resulted into a huge dip of Indian students enrolling for universities in Britain. According to another report, the number of Indian students coming to UK universities for higher education has gone down to 18, 320 in 2014-15, from 39,090 in 2010-11.
Mentioning further about the interest of UK in the country, Asquith mentioned that UK is investing in 75 start-ups along with providing financial services to Indian women. He added that the British companies spend seven percent of their revenues on providing training to Indian employees to hone their skills.