“no limit” on the number of Indian nationals who can come to study & work" -Cameron

[zeitghost]

Rating by subject/department is most credibly done by REF (Home : REF 2014).
Undergraduate league tables are pretty useless due being based on various subjective qualitative categories and largely meaningless/out-of-context stats.

Amusingly enough, the National Student Survey figures large.

Talk about the tail wagging the dog.

[Platypus]

Without all these illegals you woudlnt get cheap food and meals in restaurants. And the distribution network would collapse.

I don't want cheap nasty food cooked by an illegal, thanks.

Why would the distribution network collapse?

[vetran]

So the argument is

1. The government was in 2012 tightening the rules on Education Visa's because the there was a three fold rise under New Lie without similar expansion of capacity.
2. CMDave despite knowing a good portion of abuse was performed by Indian Nationals is still selling our Education visa's to India.
3. Because people contracting to large multinationals haven't seen any people working illegally on student Visa's then it can't be happening.
4. Despite the government closing down 'colleges' with premises the size of a modern downstairs loo with 2000 students there is no abuse because the Guardian front page said it was savage cuts.
5. Despite being a highly qualified Polymath SAS can't understand Spod is putting him on his ignore list.

[ELBBUBKUNPS]

This is great new now we can all look forward to new neighbours building mini bungalows at the bottom of there garden. Mine have and totally breached permitted development rules so I thought I would let them finish it then report them.

[doodab]

Remember that higher education is one the Uk's key exports.

Makes one wonder why basic education appears to be a key import...

[zeitghost]

This is great new now we can all look forward to new neighbours building mini bungalows at the bottom of there garden. Mine have and totally breached permitted development rules so I thought I would let them finish it then report them.

Excellent move.

Just realised wot your name means.

[IR35FanClub]

I believe that you hit the nail on he head here ... the sheer size of the problem is hidden under the veil of silence and the evidence is supressed, credibility undermined (for whatever reason, perhaps just to avoid trouble or just to supress the wages, or because TATA said so, who knows). Talk informally to the guys involved, they will brag about it, proud that they cheated the system.

The only true way to find out, is to submit a FOI request. But to whom and how to phrase the questions to get exactly the answer you want. Border Agency, Home Office? Department of Education? HMRC? You are bascially trying to answer the question - how many people who came here on study visas took up a job and have stayed in the country after their study program completed. The last bit is where even the FOI act won't help - it seems they don't actually know who is still here and who isn't, becuase they never used to collect exit stats. The only way to find out now, is to have undercover UKBA staff wandering round the streeets and asking random people for their ID. Which ain't gonna happen.

If you had a supercomputer handy and it wasn't against the data protection act for departments to share information, you may be able to correlate people with expired student visas to those people with NI records (that were created before you needed a visa to get an NI number).

This doesn't get you past the next stage - those people who have NI numbers obtained through the back door FOR FOR A FEE! Yep even in Britain the right number of purple pieces of paper can get you a real NI identity. Once you are on the computer everything else gets a lot easier. Driving License. Passport. The system relies on low paid civil servants being honest. Erm!?? I'm not suggested this is rife, but if you ask around the foreign ex-pat community in the UK, someone will know someone who can get you out of trouble. So even the official stats you might get from an FOI request will hide lets say for arguments sake, a few tens or hundreds of thousands of people who look to be legit.

You may think this is hearsay, but I talked someone out of spending £3,000 on doing just this. I pointed out although the paper work would be legit, it still didn't change their real status. And in fact could land them in jail for a lengthy spell. The better option was to go home, and reapply for a new VISA. And keep the £3,000 to support the family. When you see those sort of numbers you'll understand why even the most honest hard working civ could be tempted to commit fraud.

It might seem simple ethical choice to me and you, but to the person involved, the worry of not getting back to the UK and not being able to earn was more than the fear of getting caught. What I did learn from knowing said person is that a lot of people are in the same boat and didn't necessarily come here to beat the system, but got caught in a trap where going home wasn't an option. Not until they had a warchest to last until they found a rare job, but the living costs in the UK are so high it takes them an age, especially when most of the spare cash goes back home anyway. This particular person found a job back home via a telephone interview from the UK and is now happily back with the family.

[IR35FanClub]

So the argument is
4. Despite the government closing down 'colleges' with premises the size of a modern downstairs loo with 2000 students there is no abuse because the Guardian front page said it was savage cuts.

That reminds me of the other scam I saw first hand. A English language school in Brum, next to an office I was working at where the only day there were any [Indian looking] students was a Tuesday, for a 1/2 day. Then it was empty all week again. I guess they all stayed at home to practise English instead of studying (or going to work). If I had the nerve I would have asked if they were there on a Tuesday to study or claim their GIRO!. I wouldn't put it past the owners of these dodgy schools that they were claiming the students were on some kinds of unemployment training scheme to get an extra bit of "A4E" type funding from the government. They exist purely to get people into the UK via the back door, and make themselves a lot of cash in the process.

Which reminds me, the best thing when theres a skills shortage is to become a trainer, not train to do the job yourself ;-) Back in 2007 I was one of the 15,000 numpties who trained to be an energy assessor , when they only needed 2,700 (when the housing market was bouyant). To my credit - when I signed up there were only about 400 people who had done so! It was all the nutters who came along afterwards I couldn't understand. Nevermind - I had contracting to fall back on, but a lot of people had given up careers to retrain. I'm guessing a lot of these students were given all sorts of promises by fraudsters back home - and end up flipping burgers and sleeping 8 to a room! I blame the schools not the people.

[Doggy Styles]

Originally Posted by ELBBUBKUNPS

Just realised wot your name means.

Well, almost anyway.

[ELBBUBKUNPS]

Well, almost anyway.

To be honest I've been supprised no one picked up on it before, may be it was the typo in it