The British government’s new visa proposals will require foreign language students to have a good standard of English before they come to the UK to study.
The proposals are a Whitehall knee-jerk to unfounded fears about illegal immigration and radicalisation of students at UK institutions following the bombing attempt on a US-bound aircraft on Christmas Day by a British-educated Nigerian.
In Bournemouth - which until now had a longstanding and healthy EFL industry - school bosses predict the town’s economy will take an annual £90m battering with countless jobs lost.
They say applications are already down and are haemorrhaging tens of thousands of pounds a week as students, aware of the proposals, choose other countries instead.
They also claim there is absolutely no evidence students with poor English transform into terrorists or abscond.
Students like Sachi Hanaki (pictured) say the new rules would have stopped her coming to the UK.
She arrived in Bournemouth from Japan with poor English skills a decade ago, but is now fluent, has an MA from Bournemouth University, and is a full-time marketing assistant at The Beet Language Centre where she first studied.
“Studying English in England still has that world-class reputation but if I had been applying to come here under the new rules I wouldn’t have bothered,” said Sachi.
“If you can already speak a language then why come over and spend a lot of money to re-learn it?”
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