Blog 5: UK a long way off net migration target/Migration

According to this article the UK is facing a difficult downturn in the number of migrant students attending colleges and Universities in Britain. Their net migration is the difference between the number of people immigrating to the UK and those emigrating. The UK government has very little control on emigration, now the problem remains immigration. The statistics clearly indicate that there has been a decline in  the net migration to the UK to 163,000. This number is a descent start for reaching the goal of reducing immigration to less than 100,000 by the year 2015 however, there is still more room for improvement.  The biggest problem arrives from the fact that student immigration has declined from 239,000 to 197,000 in less than a year. This article states that the number of student visas being issued has also declined which will definitely impact the number of international students attending the colleges and/ or Universities in the UK. The Universities are worried about this downturn because it means that the "higher education sectors will lose revenue and competitiveness". Not only is the government taking action against issuing student visas, they are also cutting back on "highly-skilled" worker visas as well because they want to reach their goal of the net migration.

Migration of international students creates diversity among the college and university campuses. If the UK government is more focused on cutting back on issuing student visas, many bright, skilled and intelligent international students will not have a chance to prove their ability and skills simply because they are being restricted. The Universities and/ or college campuses will begin to lose revenue as Brhmie Balaram had stated in his newspaper article. The government will also see that the decrease in net migration will cause businesses and companies to shut down because they wont be able to find eligible and competent workers for their businesses to run efficiently. Even though some officials and educators have presented opposition to the decline in issuing student visas, the government has stated they will might have to issue more severe measures to reach their intended goal of net migration.

Migration
March 1, 2013
2:48PM

http://www.publicserviceeurope.com/article/3156/uk-a-long-way-off-net-migration-target