Fitter for Purpose

It's only fair to point out that, a week after I wrote my last blog post (read, to my great surprise, by thousands - thanks, folks!) UKBA's fabulously misspelt and badly-laid-out Tier 4(G) form quietly came down from the website and was replaced by a much-edited version, which is for the most part coherent and which doesn't include such original renderings of words such as "postrgraduate" and "finacial". There are also enough boxes in which to enter standard UK postcodes now, though woe betide you if you study at an institution or live on a road with a long name, as there still isn't room to put those in without getting creative with the form. While not as side-splittingly amusing as the previous version, there are still many parts with which I could take issue (the form asks for both certificates and transcripts, where the rules only require one or the other) but these are for the most part boring to most of the world who, fortunately for them, don't deal with such applications. So well done, UKBA, for being almost there at the second attempt - rather like degree students, oh, except that many of them are not allowed a second attempt at their assessments if that means it takes them over the 5 year time limit allowed for degree (including Masters) level study. What a good job UKBA doesn't apply "tough new measures" to itself. And what a good job for us all that Theresa May still insists she knows better than everyone else, and doesn't need to listen to students, universities, employers or economists, or indeed the negative experiences of another country that tried it all first when implementing crackdown after crackdown. On the contrary, Theresa May is apparently keen to attract the "brightest and the best" to the UK (they could offer them jobs putting together forms for the UKBA afterwards), and indeed I'm sure we will be top of their list when they read that we're no longer going to make them queue for 12 hours to register with the police when they arrive having already queued for three hours to get into the country in the first place unless they qualified as "high value" (a euphemism for "rich") migrants and were able to pay their way to a quicker entry, only to find their university has been stripped of its licence so they have to apply at vast expense for a new visa (£394 by mail, over £700 for a one-day service) which will probably take several months so they can't go home for the holidays. To all those students I say: Welcome to Britain. We are so glad you came, and I'm sure you are too. Enjoy.