Between 2021 and 2023, 1,425 foreign students who were accepted to British universities had their entry to the nation refused at the airports.
A total of 161 Nigerians were impacted since they were turned away at airports all around the United Kingdom.
India led the list of affected foreign students with 644, accounting for 45% of the total, according to data that was exclusively obtained from the UK Home Office through the Freedom of Information Act. Nigeria came in second with 11.3% of the total. Bangladesh is ranked fourth with 90 (6.32 percent) and Ghana is ranked third with 92 (6.46 percent).
The data that has been made public, spanning from October 2021 to October 2023, is restricted to students who were turned away at the airports. It excludes foreign students who have been deported by the Home Office due to visa violations, such as working more than 20 hours per week and engaging in academic dishonesty.
The Home Office withheld the explanation for the foreign students’ expulsion.
However, Saturday PUNCH learnt that some of the factors contributing to these rulings were students’ failure to persuade Border Force personnel during airport security checks, their presentation of falsified documentation, and their poor command of the English language.
In a September 2023 post on X, North London, UK-based immigration attorney Dele Olawanle denounced the mistreatment of students and urged the UK Government to take action against Border Force officials who, in his words, had turned themselves into admissions officers.
Olawanle bemoaned the fact that three students came to him for assistance three hours after being threatened with expulsion from the airport.
He wrote, “UK border officers have turned themselves into university officials at the point of entry by questioning students entering the UK to start their course on some aspects of the course they are going to start. If they do not answer correctly, they have their visas cancelled, and some are removed from the UK. Sad! I have had three instructions on that in the last 24 hours.
“It is not their job because most of these students were interviewed by the university before being offered a place on the course. Most of these Border Force officers have not even been to university and are not qualified to examine these foreign students on their academic knowledge.
“I can say this as I have had dealings with them for the last 24 years. Their job is to make sure the students obtain entry clearance genuinely. If you are a student coming to start your course, be prepared for immigration officers turning themselves into university examiners.”
A data analyst, Nelly Okechukwu, who claimed he narrowly escaped screening at one of the airports, also shared his experience.
He wrote, “After going through a 16-hour flight, a border officer asked for my transcript, which I presented, and this lady started asking me to tell her about a course I studied in my 200-level in the university. A university I graduated from since 2012.”
The Higher Education Statistics Agency reports that during the 2021–2022 academic year, 679,970 international students were admitted to UK universities.
44,195 of the 68,320 African citizens studying in the UK for the 2021–2022 academic year came from Nigeria, making it the country with the largest number of international students.
According to HESA data, the number of Nigerian students increased to 72,355 for the 2022–2023 academic year. The figure is attributed to students who enrolled between August 1, 2022, and July 31, 2023.
According to an analysis by SBM Intelligence, the economy of Nigeria benefited from the £1.9 billion that Nigerian students and their dependents brought to the UK in a single year. The academic year 2021–2022 was covered by the data.
In the academic year 2021–2022, foreign students made a £41.9 billion contribution to the UK economy, according to the data.
The country’s umbrella organisation for institutions, institutions UK International, stated it was unable to comment on the student removal data.
However, the group pointed out that the number of immigrants with student visas who were turned away at the border was significantly lower than those who were accepted in response to questions from Saturday PUNCH.
