BRITAIN ANNOUNCED STUDENTS OBTAINING STUDY VISA NEED TO PAY 150 POUNDS FOR HEALTH CARE PER YEAR WHICH APPEARS TO BE MINOR COMPARED TO TUITION FEES BUT CLAIMED TO BE INCREASINGLY UNWELCOMING MESSAGE TO FOREIGN STUDENTS 13TH JANUARY 2014 The British government recently announced a proposal to introduce health care access fees for migrants and long-term visitors this year. The fees would affect some foreign students, who would for the first time have to pay for medical cover while in Britain. The proposal, published on Dec. 30, is part of an immigration bill now going through Parliament and does not expressly target students. But concerns are being voiced that it would set up yet another hurdle for international access to the British education system — one of the most prestigious in the world. “As a matter of principle, the levy is unfortunate and unfair,” said Dominic Scott, chief executive of the UK Council for International Student Affairs, the national advisory body for international students in Britain. Foreign students who need to apply for visas — those from countries outside the European Union — will have to pay 150 pounds, or roughly $250, per year of study when they are issued their visa, according to the plan laid out by the Department of Health. The proposed charge is relatively minor compared with tuition and other costs that for a foreign student in Britain can easily reach £20,000 a year. Critics of the plan concede that it is unlikely, by itself, to turn many away. Still, they warn that it will add to a cumulative message that is increasingly unwelcoming. It comes during an often strident populist campaign for tighter immigration curbs and less than two years after the government eliminated a visa track, known as Tier-1 (post-study work), that allowed newly graduated foreigners to stay in Britain to work. “Tier 1 was the hammer blow, but it’s just possible that people will see this as one damned thing after another,” Mr. Scott said. Daniel Stevens, the international students’ officer at the National Union of Students, the country’s largest student union, agreed: “You will see a shift in the attitude of international students toward other countries,” he said. Daniel Obst, deputy vice president of the Institute of International Education, in New York, said he thought it highly unlikely that the fee would cut the number of students going to Britain. Still, “every time you have a new regulation, there is concern,” he said. “You have to deal with the perceptions issue.”
Posted on: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 05:25:39 +0000
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