Top London university loses right to sponsor visas; hundreds of Indian students affected

London: London Metropolitan University, which has over 350 Indian students on its rolls, has been told by the UK Border Agency that it cannot bring foreign students into the country. This has led to panic among around 2600 foreign students of the university, who fear deportation.

The move provoked dismay from students and accusations that the move by the Conservative-led government, which is bent on reducing immigration, could damage Britain's global reputation.

"It is in a way heart-breaking because obviously when an international student is coming here to study, he is investing lots of money. Some of us doing undergraduate courses, some of us doing PhDs - few are with scholarships but most have their own funding," said Wasim Javed, a final-year student and a student representative.

The London Metropolitan University lost its "highly trusted status" because a survey found significant problems with the qualifications of many of its foreign students, Immigration Minister Damian Green said.

In a "significant proportion" of cases, there was no documentation that students had a good standard of English, Mr Green said, and there was no proof that half of those sampled were attending lectures. He said the sampling of the university's foreign students indicated that more than a quarter did not have current permission to be in the country.

"Any one of those breaches would be serious," Mr Green told BBC radio. "We found all three of those breaches at London Metropolitan."

A statement from the university said, "The University regrets to announce that the UK Border Agency (UKBA) has revoked its Highly Trusted Status for sponsoring international students.  The implications of the revocation are hugely significant and far-reaching, and the University has already started to deal with these.  It will be working very closely with the UKBA, HEFCE, the National Union of Students and its own Students' Union."

A degree from a UK university is highly prized by many students abroad, and those from outside the European Union often pay higher fees than residents. The British government, which has cracked down on immigration in multiple ways, has pointed to student visas as a category ripe for abuse by those who may instead be looking for work.

London Metropolitan has 30,000 students, and 2,600 are affected by the government's decision, said university spokesman Nick Hansen. Students from other European Union countries don't need visas.

The affected students will have 60 days to find new sponsors once they are formally notified by the government, or they could be deported. A task force has been set up to help genuine students who otherwise qualify for visas, Universities Minister David Willetts said, but with the fall term imminent students have little time to find new sponsors and courses.

Emmanuel Egwu, a 24-year-old Nigerian, said he was told he would be unable to do his final year of his three-year course in forensic sciences at London Metropolitan. "I have been paying loads of tuition fees, my parents have been spending a lot of money, selling properties back home to make sure my tuition fees have been paid. It's like flushing money down the toilet," Egwu said.

It was not clear why the affected students currently at London Metropolitan's system were not being allowed to simply finish their courses of study.

London Metropolitan was formed in 2002 when London Guildhall University and the University of North London merged, and it traces its history to the founding of the City of London College in 1861.

(With inputs from Associated Press)