Visas: Overseas Students

(asked on 3rd December 2015) - View Source

Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what criteria they use in auditing compliance with Tier 4 licences for non-EU students.


Answered by
Lord Bates Portrait
Lord Bates
This question was answered on 21st December 2015

All Tier 4 licensed sponsors are assessed against criteria set out in the published Tier 4 Guidance for Sponsors. This includes the following four documents:

  • Document one – Applying for a Tier 4 licence
  • Document two – Sponsorship Duties
  • Document three – Tier 4 Compliance
  • Appendix D - record keeping

Some of the key criteria includes:

  • Ensuring that each sponsor has a genuine and lawful trading presence.
  • Ensuring that each sponsor holds the appropriate education oversight with the relevant external inspection body.
  • Compliance visits; where checks are undertaken to establish whether an institution’s HR functions are appropriate.
  • An annual basic compliance assessment (BCA); where the sponsor must meet demonstrate that their visa refusal, enrolment and course completion rates fall within the outlined requisites.
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