London mayor lobbies for special visa for C'wealth students

London mayor Boris Johnson is lobbying for a special visa for Commonwealth citizens to stay and work in the UK to stem the drop in Indian student numbers.
According to official statistics, the number of Indian students coming to study in Britain has halved from 39,090 in 2010-11 to 19,750 in 2013-14.
The key reason behind this dramatic drop has been attributed to a clampdown on the post-study work visa, which had allowed many of these students to stay and look for a job for up to two years after completing their course.
Now, 'The Financial Times' reports that Johnson has written to the UK's higher education minister, Jo Johnson - who also happens to be his younger brother, suggesting a "dedicated post-study work visa targeted at Commonwealth citizens".

Under the current system, students have only four months to find work and must be paid a minimum salary of 20,800 pounds, compared to earlier when they had two years for the job-hunt process.
Indian high commissioner to the UK Ranjan Mathai suggested that top-tier British universities should be more involved in vetting students alongside the Home Office.

"We strongly feel that the universities should be part of this process of ensuring that students are able to come if they meet the requirements, and they should be part of the dialogue," he told the newspaper.
"We believe that in our interconnected world, students should be able to access the best in higher education. We have a huge number of foreign students coming to India also, so it's not just a one-way process," he said.

However, under immense pressure to reduce net migration into the UK from its current record high of 330,000, UK home secretary Theresa May is squaring up for a clash with her other Cabinet colleagues who believe foreign students should be kept out of the total net migration figures.