According to Richard Montgomery, the British High Commissioner to Nigeria, the United Kingdom’s (UK) decision to limit international students’ ability to bring dependents with them beginning in 2024 is not intended to harm Nigerians but rather to safeguard UK infrastructure given the recent rise in international students bringing family members from all over the world.
The British High Commissioner stated this on Wednesday after he met with Vice President Kashim Shettima at the State House, Abuja.
He admitted that the number of Nigerian students coming to the UK increased five folds in three years, just as the overall number of international students also increased.
Montgomery added that though this is a “fantastic success story for our universities”, it is not always possible to find housing and services for the high number of the population coming into the UK with their families.
In May, the UK Home Office said it will restrict foreign students from bringing family members with them effective 2024 to stop people from using the student visa as a backdoor channel to work in the UK.
Asked whether migration between Nigeria and the UK was discussed at his meeting with the Vice President, British High Commissioner said the issue was not raised at the meeting “but I would like to put the media debate about it in a broader context”.
Montgomery said, “Last year (2022), for example, the UK granted three million new visas, of which 325,000 of those visas were Nigerians. So, Nigerian visitors constitute over 10 per cent of the people coming to London and the UK.
“On the issue of student visas, I’ll also like to provide a context. The number of Nigerian students coming to the UK has increased five folds in the last three years. It’s a fantastic success story for our universities. And we are really delighted that so many Nigerians are coming to the UK.
“The issue about restrictions on people bringing dependents, that’s partly not because of Nigeria but many parts of the world, many more students are trying to bring their dependents with them.
“There are two issues here: the first is – it’s not always possible to find the housing and services to meet all the needs of all our existing student population and secondly, we’ll have to manage our visitors’ number, we have to manage migration in and out of the UK just as the Nigerian Government does.”