Foreign students and prospective immigrants will be interviewed before being issued visas for the United Kingdom, the British home secretary said on Monday. Britain Home Secretary Theresa May said that from next April onwards, the border staff will question all prospective immigrants in order to root out the abuse of the visa system, while making sure that UK remains as a destination for foreign students to study at. Last year, the UK Border Agency began a pilot scheme in which “high-risk student visa applicants” from Pakistan and elsewhere were interviewed instead of the usual paper-based checks. More than 2,300 prospective students were questioned. In a speech to London-based think tank, Policy Exchange, Theresa May said, “The lesson from that pilot scheme was clear. Abuse was rife, paper-based checks were ineffective, and the interviews being conducted by entry clearance officers, with the freedom to use their own judgment in doubtful cases, were working.” “The government wants to strike a balance between encouraging the lucrative market in higher education and ensuring that student visas are not being used as a backdoor route into working in Britain,” she said. However, she assured that there was no cap on the number of students being allowed to study in UK and neither was there any plan to introduce one.
