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Written by Administrator
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Friday, 18 December 2009 11:37 |
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According to new updates from the Home Office, the number of Malaysians illegally overstaying in the UK has remained at the same levels, or even increased, from the year before. It is estimated that there are about 20,000 Malaysians every year who enter the UK under the visa waiver agreement between the two countries, but then fail to exit the country after 60 days or engage in illegal activities such as work.
 Earlier this year, the British Home Office conducted a review of countries that have a visa-free status with the UK. While they considered ending Malaysia’s visa-free status, they decided to maintain the status quo and monitor the situation of illegal immigrants from Malaysia over the year of 2009.
However, the new reports show that the tide of overstayers from Malaysia has reached a critical level and has not improved over the year. The Malaysian Deputy High Commissioner Datuk Rustam Yahaya was quoted as saying that “we are likely to be hit this time” when talking about the UK’s latest review of visa waivers. He estimated that Malaysia will very likely lose its visa-free status to enter the UK in about 2011. It remains to be seen if the Schengen countries, who currently have visa-free arrangements with Malaysia, will follow suit shortly.
The Deputy High Commissioner also said that there is nothing the Malaysian government can do, as they are unable to prevent Malaysians from travelling abroad and overstaying or working illegally. While the Malaysian government could increase cross-border cooperation to help reduce the number of overstayers, the effect of additional measures and efforts will have a minimal effect.
If the new visa rules are implemented in 2011, it will mean much higher costs for Malaysians planning to travel to Britain for work, leisure, or tourism. Visa processing fees will be around RM1,200, in additional to long waits for an appointment as well as the hassle of having to fulfil the document requirements. |
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Last Updated on Friday, 18 December 2009 11:41 |
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Written by Administrator
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Monday, 16 November 2009 12:34 |
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The UK Border Agency has announced new rules regarding UK higher education institutions and foreign students studying under a student visa. These new amendments are tweaks to the student visa points-based system aimed at closing loopholes and reducing the number of bogus student visas.
 From next year onwards, universities and colleges will have to monitor the attendance of overseas students enrolled in courses in their institutions. These measures are intended to help curb what the media (and the UKBA to some extent) is saying is rampant abuse of the student visa system for immigrants to come into the UK to work instead of study.
Universities and colleges will be asked to limit the number of resits that foreign students are allowed on exams, in order to prevent students from trying to purposely extend their stay in the UK. This will help deter and curb the problem of immigrants coming in under the student visa to work instead of study.
In addition, attendance monitoring will have to be conducted to ensure that foreign students are actively participating in lectures, labs, and other requisites of their courses. At many universities, attendance taking is non-existent for both domestic and foreign students at the moment. Many fear a big-brother style environment if attendance recording, or “roll call”, is taken. In addition, this segregation or special treatment for foreign students might result in tensions or resentment between local and foreign students, who have up to now been integrating and interacting well on campuses nationwide.
This new measure will only work to catch bogus students enrolled in legitimate higher education establishments, which is at the moment very rare because of the high tuition fees in legitimate universities as well as the strict academic entrance criteria. These measures will be less effective or entirely useless in bogus or sham colleges, who enrol students with no intention of providing them with an education, and make their money from immigrants who want to obtain a student visa to enter and work in the UK. These sham colleges will in all likelihood be able to orchestrate false attendance records.
More details on the measure will be announced next year. Three schools at the University of Edinburgh are undertaking attendance monitoring pilot schemes on behalf of the UKBA to evaluate the effectiveness of such a scheme. |
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Last Updated on Monday, 16 November 2009 12:43 |
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