UK language schools opting out of Tier 4

English language schools in the UK are increasingly opting out of the ISI educational oversight regime and voluntarily removing themselves from the Tier 4 sponsor register, StudyTravel Magazine has learned.

Tier 4 sponsor status is necessary for a language school to accept long-term non-EU students on courses of 12 months or longer, but several institutions have opted against the higher costs associated with the ISI inspection. Under immigration changes announced in 2011, ISI oversight is a prerequisite for Tier 4 sponsor status for language schools and private FE colleges. ?xml:namespace prefix = "o" ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /

Language schools that are accredited by either Accreditation UK or ABLS Accreditation can still accept non-EU students on courses up to 11 months, regardless of Tier 4 status.

Huan Japes, Deputy Chief Executive for Professional Services at language school association English UK, told StudyTravel Magazine, "We note that a number of our members have recently left Tier 4 and educational oversight or are thinking of doing so."

He added, "Before this year, over half of our members were in Tier 4 and we will know how many have left by early March when our annual return is complete. This is essentially a business decision for them: for private language schools and FE colleges in particular, the Tier 4 market is in decline and so not worth the costs and additional burdens."

English UK currently has more than 470 members, although it should be noted that members that are language centres at publicly funded universities and FE colleges will be Tier 4 listed through the wider institution's status.

There are around 250 private providers listed on the most recent Tier 4 register published by the Home Office on February 6, which includes language schools, FE and HE colleges. The total number of current Tier 4 sponsors is 1,399, with higher education institutions and independent secondary schools forming the bulk of the list.

ST Magazine is awaiting a response to a request for data from the Home Office on how many institutions have voluntarily withdrawn from the Tier 4 sponsor register in the last 12 months, but the figures suggest a significant decline of language schools listed.

Analysis of inspection reports on the ISI website showed that at least 40 language centres are historical listings, although a handful of these may be down to closures and mergers. The historical listings include some chain schools that appear to have retrenched Tier 4 status to some, but not all, of their centres.

Huan cited immigration policy for decreasing numbers of Tier 4 language applications. "The sharp decline in Tier 4 numbers that the ELT sector has experienced is partly down to recent changes to the immigration rules in addition to market factors. Tougher refusal rates for sponsors, removal of work rights, the removal of in-UK renewals for Tier 4 students at private and FE colleges - all of these and more have eroded the market at a time that the market share for competitor destinations such as the USA, Australia and Canada, is rising."

In the most recent immigration data published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), there were 3,061 Tier 4 student visas granted for language study (12 month+) in the year ending September 2015, a 10 per cent decrease compared with the previous year.

Wimbledon School of English is one of the high-profile schools to have recently opted out of Tier 4, and Jane Dancaster, Principal of the school, told ST Magazine, "It is no longer financially viable to stay with ISI. Since the government withdrew the option for international students to renew their study visas within the UK, we have not had any applications from students needing a Tier 4 visa. Our last Tier 4 booking was in August."

In a 2013 StudyTravel Magazine feature on the early implementation of ISI oversight, WSE was one of 88 institutions listed that had received a perfect score of 'exceeds expectations' in all areas of the inspection, and is the only school in the UK to have received 15 'strengths' in a British Council/Accreditation UK inspection.

Jane explained, "The actual cost of a full inspection by ISI for larger schools such as WSE is UK£13,000-UK£15,000, plus a further UK£4,000-UK£5,000 for externally audited accounts. The interim inspections cost several thousand, and we get inspected three years out of four. Therefore, all our efforts are focused on the inspection each year instead of developing the school, and this is holding us back."

She said that the ISI regime has led to a duplication of work for already-accredited schools, and had not achieved market recognition or clarity. "We already get inspected by the British Council and we don't need to have two inspection bodies. We have learnt things from the ISI inspections and we have found them helpful but we don't want to do both any more. The quality mark from ISI is not recognised by anyone else - students, parents, agents. There is no marketing advantage in having it."

Jane predicted more institutions would follow suit. "We know of several schools that are considering withdrawing from ISI."

Melton College in York is an institution that decided not to apply for ISI from the outset. "We never joined as it was clearly not worth the money in terms of potential students or quality assurance," explained Andrew Hjort, Principal of the school.

But Andrew said a major worry for language schools at the time that ISI was introduced was that the government might extend education oversight to cover all student visa strands.

"ISI never made promotion a priority so the marque was never really of much value," he said, although he noted that many agents do recognise the immigration purpose differences between Accreditation UK and ISI.

By Matthew Knott

News Editor

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