Immigration authorities suspend 140 UK Colleges

The UK Government has announced that in the past six months alone there have been 15 colleges shut down and a further 140 suspended for breaching immigration rules.

In the period since march 2009 all of the British educational facilities that hope to attract students from outside the EU have been forced to seek approval from the UK Border Agency for obtaining a ‘Tier 4’ operating license which would place them on the official list of authorised institutions for foreign students.

Lord West of Spithead, the Security Minister, stated that the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills formerly held a list of some 4,000 colleges which has now dwindled to just 2,000. Speaking at parliamentary question time Lord West advised peers that in the second half of 2009 15 colleges holding the Tier 4 qualification had their licenses revoked while the 600-odd inspections carried out across the country resulted in a further 140 colleges being suspended.

Lord West was asked by Conservative Lord Naseby why there still existed such a high number of bogus educational institutions that allowed illegal immigrants to travel to the UK but Lord West said that he would not accept that his government did not have the situation under control. He refused to directly answer questions relating to alleged reports that just 29 out of 66,000 Pakistani immigrants were interviewed in the nine months until September 2009 other than to say that this was only the last action in any suspicious cases.

Lord West advised that a special inspection team was deployed across the UK to visit colleges and determine whether the standard of courses offered, along with how students are managed pre and post graduation. He acknowledged that there have been bogus operators but they were being actively targeted.