The National Indian Students and Alumni Association (NISAU) UK, the representative body of Indian students and alumni in the UK, today wrote to the UK Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, urging the government to safeguard the Graduate Route. This appeal has been made amid reports that Sunak is considering either restricting or completely ending the Graduate Route to put a stop at the soaring migration statistics, ahead of a general election in the country. The Graduate Route allows international graduates to stay in the UK for two years post-graduation (three years for PhD graduates) to gain work experience. The NISAU believes that this policy is critical to maintaining the UK’s attractiveness as a destination for international students and supporting the UK’s higher education sector and economy. In the letter, NISAU UK's Chair Sanam Arora points out that as instructed by the government, the recent Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) report also states that there is no evidence to suggest that the Graduate Route is being abused and even recommended that it is retained in its current form. The letter states that a recent poll from Survation has found that the majority of voters think cutting student numbers is the wrong immigration priority for the UK and understand the important economic contribution international students make to this country. 66 per cent think that the Graduate route should allow international graduates to work in the UK for the two permitted years — or even longer. Only 4 per cent want the government to focus on reducing international student numbers. "Some find merit in reducing the hard work of young people to ‘deliveroo visas’. In fact, international students and graduates are by and large extremely hard-working young people who have typically invested tens of thousands of pounds into their UK education, alongside their dreams and aspirations for a better future. They trust our country with their futures, often by taking out expensive educational loans. It is only reasonable that they would want some return on this very significant investment. And the return they seek is the very simple opportunity to gain meaningful work experience for a temporary period of time. In today’s world where employability is a key outcome of education, we should not separate work experience from the study experience. In this context, the Graduate route allows the opportunity to gain this work experience for a temporary period. It is non-extendable and does not count towards permanent settlement. This means that neither students nor graduate visa holders should be considered ‘immigrants’ in the context of the long-term picture of migration, which to our mind should be used as the basis of policymaking, to address any concerns around immigration," Arora said. Recipients of this letter also include Foreign Secretary The Rt Hon Lord Cameron; Education Secretary The Rt Hon Gillian Keegan; India's External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar, UK Exports Minister Lord Offord; UK International Higher Education Champion Sir Steve Smith; Co-Chair of the APPG for International Students Lord Karan Bilimoria CBE DL; Scott McDonald, Chief Executive of the British Council and Vivienne Stern MBE, Chief Executive of Universities UK. This letter comes a few days after the chief executive of the Russell Group Dr Tim Bradshaw also came out in support of the Graduate Visa, claiming that international students bring huge value to the university communities. “We recognise concerns around the behaviour of some agents and we would support targeted measures to address this. However, the overall message from the MAC is that the Graduate Route is achieving its objectives as set out by the Government. We would therefore urge Ministers to end the uncertainty and confirm as soon as possible that the route will continue in its entirety," he said.
