Indians have overtaken Chinese nationals as the largest group to be granted sponsored study visas in Britain, following a 215 percent rise since pre-pandemic levels.
The Home Office revealed on Thursday that 486,868 sponsored study visas—the highest number on record—were granted in the year to June 2022, a rise of 71 percent on June 2019, the last year before the pandemic.
Of those, almost a quarter—117,965—were given to Indian nationals, an increase of 80,569 from 2019.
There was a slight fall in Chinese nationals—115,056, compared with 119,825 in 2019—and a huge surge in visas granted to Nigerians, up 686 percent to 57,545.
Earlier this month the British High Commissioner in New Delhi, Alex Ellis, told The Times of India: “There’s been a huge growth in Indian student numbers to the UK. We’ve got down to somewhere very low, less than 20,000 four or five years ago, now it’s up to 100,000, we want to go even higher.”…