The British High Commissioner to Nigeria Richard Montgomery, the UK government’s new policy on restricting foreign student visas is intended to manage the strain on social services for scholars.
Montgomery clarified in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja that the policy was not intended to discourage Nigerian students from studying in the UK.
According to him, Nigerians wishing to study in the UK currently enjoy a visa approval rate of 97%.
He urged Nigerians to see the new visa policy in the United Kingdom in a broader light, calling it “really a positive for Nigeria and the United Kingdom.”
“Three years ago, there were 20,000 Nigerian students in British higher education institutions, and last year, the number increased to 127,000.
“So, we had a five-fold increase in the number of students from Nigeria coming to UK universities.
“We are delighted that UK universities continue to attract the best and brightest from Nigeria.
“And in the wider context, last year, the UK granted three million new UK visas of various types including students and other visitors.
“Nigerians alone received 325,000 of those 3 million visas.
“So more than 10 per cent of the visas from the UK are to Nigerian citizens which is fantastic.
“It goes back to the fact that the UK and Nigeria have strong people-to-people links.
“The policy change is about people who are doing non-research degrees coming to the UK as undergraduates, or for a one-year master’s degree programme, and who decide to bring their dependents.
“We have had a very significant rise in the number of people coming from all around the world, not just from Nigeria.
“This has caused some strain on the UK.
“Sometimes it is difficult to find good accommodation as a student and there is real pressure on housing and social services for students.
“If you looked at it three years ago, only 1,500 dependent students were coming to the UK from Nigeria, but now it was 52,000 last year.
“I am just trying to put it in proper context, that this is an adjustment.
“The words that are being used in the media to describe the situation are misrepresenting. We are making an adjustment that enables us to manage the demands on services in university towns and elsewhere.
“Nigerians are very successful in acquiring visas. We have a 97 per cent approval rate and so that is the big context,” Montgomery said.
He expressed the UK’s pride in its research institutes and higher education which, he said, were listed among the top hundred universities in the world.
The higher institutions, he said, are very open to students going to study in the UK.
He expressed the belief that Nigerians stand to gain massively from the international exposure and international networks offered by studying in the UK.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the UK Home Office in May announced that from Jan. 2024, undergraduate and master’s students would no longer be allowed to take their dependents along with them to the UK.
The restriction does not apply to students in research programmes.
