News

The British Home Secretary Theresa May announced today that the number of non-EU students granted a visa to the UK is going to be cut by up to 80,000 a year.

The announcement is part of the government’s drive to scale down immigration to the UK to just tens of thousands by 2015, and is likely to reduce foreign student visas by as much as 25%. Of the proposal, May told MPs:

“It will protect our world-class institutions. It will stop the abuse that became all too common under Labour and it will restore some sanity to our student visa system."

“Fake Colleges”

However, away from these headline grabbing statistics, what do these new regulations actually mean to your standard student hoping to study in the UK?

Well, the proposals are basically aimed at stopping people from manipulating the system in order to simply get a UK visa. At the moment the government say there are thousands of non-EU inhabitants every year who get student visas with no intention of actually studying in the UK.

Olympic excitement is growing by the day in Britain as a range of events have taken place over the last few weeks.

It all kicked off last week when the first of a series of giant Olympic symbols was unveiled in London. A set of Olympic Rings 20 metres wide and 9 metres tall were revealed at St Pancras International train station by Mayor of London Boris Johnson.

Next to come was a countdown clock in Trafalgar Square which marked 500 days to go until the start of the 2012 Olympics. The four tonne timer looks very impressive (as you can see above), but unfortunately (and in a very British way) it stopped working just one day after being unveiled. It’s back up and running now though so is all is fine again!

Finally, tickets for the Games went on sale around the world yesterday. For 42 days you can apply for tickets to up to 20 events, and although there are 6.6 million tickets available, demand is expected to be huge. Don’t worry though, it is not a first come first serve system, but instead everyone who has applied for tickets by the 26th April deadline will be drawn at random to decide who actually gets the tickets.

Fancy virtually walking the same route that Prince William and Kate Middleton will follow before their wedding on April 29th? Or maybe you want to explore one of London’s parks without leaving your computer? Well now you can thanks to a new idea from Google.

As part of Google Maps, they have created a 3D map of London which allows you to see the sights of the Capital all from the comfort of home. If you live a long way away or simply want to check out an area before you go there, you can now explore thousands of buildings throughout the city.

What’s more, the people behind it have also ‘virtually planted’ 12,000 individual trees to create St James' Park, Green Park and Hyde Park. Click here to explore London for yourself.

A group of vice-chancellors from sixteen top UK universities have continued the fight against government plans to reduce the number of visas for international students coming to study in the UK.

In a joint letter to British newspaper ‘The Observer’, the professors wrote to “express profound concern at the damage that would be caused to the UK economy and to our universities if the government's proposals to reduce the number of international students coming to the UK are implemented”.

The letter came in response to British Home Secretary Theresa May revealing plans to make it harder for international students to get visas to study in the UK. The government has promised to cut migration to Britain by 2015 and students currently represent almost two thirds of non-EU migrants.

There is the concern that a high number of non-EU students coming to the UK are using obscure courses at untrustworthy institutions simply to get a visa. However, in their letter, the university vice-chancellors denied this, arguing that “evidence shows that international students in universities overwhelmingly do not abuse the system”.

They went on to say:

Excitement in the UK is building as the countdown to the London 2012 Olympics is gathering pace. Last night the full schedule for the world’s biggest sporting event was released, and from March 15th anyone can start applying for tickets.

Here are a few of the expected highlights: