Language schools up and down the country are dismayed by the heavy hand that hangs over the good bona fide ones as much as the dodgy visa factories. One very respectable and long-established college told me these stories:

To make sure that all of their students are bona fide, this college interviews each one on Skype at the agent’s office in whichever country.  On the day I met the owner, they had been interviewing a prospective student in India. The student was looking shyly downwards so their mouth was hard to see.  As the answers came, the interviewer suspected that it was not the ‘student’ who was answering…but someone behind them …who eventually threw a bit of a shadow! That student did not come…. and that agent is no longer doing business with that college.

Secondly, Immigration at Heathrow called to say they had a student claiming to be coming to the college: did they know about this person? The college said no…never heard of them. Five minutes later, the college received an email to say the ‘student’ was on their way and would the college please confirm arrival? Needless to say, the person never arrived. Hmmm.

This college is regularly inspected by all sorts of motley people from UKBA whilst the dodgy college across the road continues to take unregistered students…it is a visa factory.  The concern is that the good colleges are going to go out of business thanks to poor inspection and surveillance of the visa factories.

Peers Carter