Sajid Javid pledges better post-study work options for foreign students

UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid has set out his stall in the race to Downing Street with a pledge to reverse Theresa May's stringent visa norms that restricted overseas students from countries like India from staying on to work for a few years at the end of their university degree.

The senior Pakistani-origin minister, who is among 10 other contenders to succeed May as Conservative Party leader and British Prime Minister after she formally resigned on Friday, has stated that he believes it makes no sense for overseas students to not be able to work after they complete their course at a UK university.

It makes no sense to send some of the brightest and most enterprising people in the world straight home after their time here, Javid said in a column for The Financial Times' on Friday.

At an event organised by think tank British Future in London on Thursday, the minister had stressed on a similar commitment to encourage international students to both study in the UK and stay on and work after they graduate.

I want to see more international students come to our country. If they're coming here to study at our great universities, and if they want to work afterwards, we should make it easier for them to stay and work. We need a more positive attitude to this and I think the country would welcome it, Javid said.

The minister's intervention was welcomed by former universities minister Jo Johnson, who had tabled an amendment to the government's Immigration Bill back in April, calling for a two-year post-study work visa option for international students.

Home Secretary accepts my new clause in the Immigration Bill lifting post study restrictions on foreign students! Real win for UK soft power, Johnson said in a Twitter statement.

The new clause means students at recognised universities will have an automatic right to stay on to work for two years on their Tier 4 student visa and, in addition, will no longer be counted towards any hard UK-wide net migration cap on numbers, said Jo Johnson, the brother of prime ministerial frontrunner Boris Johnson who had resigned from the Theresa May Cabinet last year in protest over her Brexit policy.

While his amendment makes a specific reference to students from the European Economic Area (EEA), experts believe any change to the visa policy would have to cover all overseas students as part of the UK's post-Brexit immigration policy ending freedom of movement for EU nationals.

Although the Immigration Bill itself only addresses the end of free movement with the EU, and so only applies to EU citizens, the UK government has made it very clear that any new immigration system should apply across all nationalities," said Vivienne Stern, Director, Universities UK International (UUKi), the representative body which has been lobbying for an improved student visa offering.

"By default, then, any change to post-study work visas proposed in the bill should apply to all international students, including those from India, she said