Page 9 - StudyTravel Magazine August 2024 Issue & Star Awards 2024 Supplement

EDUCATOR Q&A AGENTS ON...

INDUSTRY SPEAKS UK VISA REFUSALS

Jodie Gray, Chief Executive Officer of English
UK, recaps on a busy 12 months which has Monica Di
included a set of achievable recommendations Natale, TECLA
within a new manifesto for the next UK Languages Ltd,
government. www.tecla-languages.co.uk, UK

“Short-term students (attending
language courses, summer schools
etc) have seen an uptick in visa
denials (in the UK). These students
are often categorised as immigrants
under current policies, leading to
inappropriate visa denials based on
the government’s overarching immi-
www.englishuk.com gration reduction targets. Last year,
info@englishuk.com we had a case involving a young
Chinese student. Despite having an
Number of members: 323 Italian ID and a Chinese passport
Types of members: Private and state ELT centres (his family resided in Italy), this
11-year-old was refused entry for a
one-week course.”
What has English UK been up to in the last 12 months?
One of the highlights for us and our members was the first China Roadshow

since the pandemic. We also had our second in-person StudyWorld back Güler Taylan,
in London, our biggest members’ conference in years and popular ELT and Global Leaders
marketing conferences. Another highlight was our Parliamentary Reception www.globalleaders.
where we launched our manifesto for the incoming government. We have com.tr, Turkey
gained and lost members, partly because of mergers of privately owned
member centres and the withdrawal of many FE colleges from the ELT space. “Recently there was an Afghan fam-
Our state sector working group recommended an associate member scheme, ily living in Istanbul. I registered four
which was launched late in 2023 at a low fixed cost. We had our first Higher siblings at the same time and their

& Further Education Conference. Our public affairs team has attended financial status documents were
meetings of the Education Sector Advisory Group and the ELT Action Group, sufficient. Only one of them could

as well as the UKinbound parliamentary reception. We’ve attended AISLI get a visa. Also, an Iranian family
in Perugia, IALCA’s Salone Delle Lingue in Rome, the EuroAsia/YEDAB agent was going to send their daughter to
workshop, IATEFL, the IALC Workshop in Cardiff and the Embassy Education high school in the UK. She was living

Conference in London. As part of our capacity challenge work, we attended in Istanbul and we tried for at least
the UK and London Careers Fairs, to raise awareness of jobs in the ELT sector. six months and it took six months
for the school to send a CAS and
Recovery slowed in the final quarter of 2023. What were after it arrived the student was sent
the main reasons for the slowdown? How is 2024 so far? to the consulate in Istanbul and it
Figures from QUIC Q1 2024 showed a solid recovery, with student week was rejected. Problems often occur
volumes reaching 81 per cent of Q1 2019 levels, better than Q4 2023. Over a in families with foreign passports
third of all individual source countries sent higher volumes than in Q1 2019, who are residents in Turkey.”
indicating short-term growth potential across a number of the UK’s markets.
Read more at: https://studytravel.
Read more at: https://studytravel.network/magazine/issues/845 network/magazine/industry-issues

6 STUDYTRAVEL MAGAZINE