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LONDON. — New immigration rules to control the number of students heading to study in Britain were announced Tuesday by the government minister responsible for interior matters. While announcing the new changes, Home Secretary Amber Rudd told the Conservative Party annual conference in Birmingham that a clampdown on immigration was not a case of pulling up the drawbridge on the brightest and best overseas students. Immigration controls were one of the deciding factors in the June referendum when British voters decided to quit the European Union. Rudd told the conference in a keynote speech that the government will shortly be consulting on the next steps needed to control immigration, working at people who come to Britain to work or study. She said Britain will look for the first time at whether student immigration rules should be tailored to the quality of the course and the quality of the educational institution.
“The current system allows all students, irrespective of their talents and the university’s quality, favourable employment prospects when they stop studying,” she told delegates. Rudd said she was passionately committed to making sure Britain’s world-leading institutions can attract the brightest and the best.
“But a student immigration system that treats every student and university as equal only punishes those we should want to help,” she added. Rudd said the consultation will ask what more can be done to support the best universities, and those that stick to the rules, to attract the best talent, while looking at tougher rules for students on lower quality courses. — Xinhua.
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