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Points based system: the accreditation of T4 (students) sponsors

The Government has announced a mandatory new requirement for educational establishments wishing to bring in international students under the points based system (PBS) which is set to be introduced for students early in 2009.

In its Command paper "A Points Based System: Making Migration Work for Britain" published in March last year the Government made it clear that "..for Tier 4 (Students), a prospective sponsor will need to demonstrate that they are a bona fide educational institution accredited by a recognised body". The announcement confirms what exactly is meant by accreditation and what institutions without it will need to do in order to qualify as sponsors under Tier 4.

What is accreditation?
Accreditation is an independent mark of quality, inspection or review that can be used to demonstrate that an institution is a genuine education provider with sound teaching practices, recruitment procedures and progress monitoring of its students.

For Border and Immigration Agency staff responsible for administering the new PBS, accreditation will provide an independent qualitative check on an institution in which the institution has demonstrated it is a genuine education provider rather than operating to facilitate the entry of bogus students to the United Kingdom. For these purposes, accreditation will require a full institutional review rather than individual course approval.

Accreditation will be a requirement that will only apply to private institutions, outside of the system of public reviews conducted by Ofsted and its devolved equivalents; the former Adult Learning Inspectorate; and Quality Assurance Agency (QAA). The Government accepts that, by law, publicly funded institutions are already regularly reviewed (as are private schools providing education to children up to 16 years old) and are bona fide so it is not the intention that the accreditation requirement should create any additional burden for these education providers. A limited concession to the accreditation requirement has also been agreed for very low risk overseas HEIs offering only part of their programmes in the United Kingdom. (For further details - see below).

The Benefits of Accreditation
Accreditation will:

support sponsorship under the PBS, as entry clearance officers will be able to trust the decisions of individual institutions when issuing certificates of sponsorship to potential students.
reduce the need for intelligence-led investigations of suspect institutions: enabling Agency compliance resources to be better targeted in a proactive manner on higher risk employers and institutions.
free Agency resources to work with educational institutions to reduce the frequency with which they may be misled by bogus students using them as a means to enter the United Kingdom and ensure sponsors’ activities are supporting the integrity of the new system.
Accreditation also offers other benefits to institutions, their students and the education sector as a whole. It:

should reduce the involvement of immigration officials in the recruitment of foreign students.
will help tackle the less reputable institutions that disrupt the otherwise excellent reputation of United Kingdom education and; as a result
should help attract more international students to United Kingdom.
All private education providers will need to be accredited by one of a limited number of Agency-approved accreditation bodies before they can qualify for as sponsors. The Home Office enlisted the assistance of Ofsted to help it determine which accreditation bodies provide an appropriate test of the bona fides of an educational institution and the following accreditation bodies have now been approved:

Accreditation UK - which offers an accreditation service for English language centres;
BAC - the British Accreditation Council - which offers a more general accreditation service to cover a wide range of different educational establishments;
ASIC - the Accreditation Service for International Colleges - which also offers a general accreditation service to cover a wide range of different educational establishments.
Any capacity issues amongst the approved accreditation bodies in carrying out inspections at private institutions in time for them to register on the sponsor register for the introduction of Tier 4 will also be covered by Ofsted. Exceptionally, Ofsted will carry out some direct inspections of private institutions to ensure that those institutions can qualify for the sponsor register by the time Tier 4 is introduced and they will then gradually move all direct inspection work to the approved accreditation bodies.

Although Tier 4 is still some 18 months away - unaccredited institutions will need to seek accreditation with one of the approved accreditation bodies as early as possible in order to ensure that they know what they need to do and can prepare for their inspection.

The limited concession to overseas HEIs extends solely to those offering short-term study abroad programmes in their own premises in the United Kingdom to students who are enrolled in their home country and who come to the United Kingdom for one or two semesters before returning home to complete their degree courses. Such providers will qualify to apply for registration on the Sponsor Register if they can show:

they hold overseas accreditation from a nationally recognised accreditor;
they only teach part of their HE programmes in the United Kingdom;
they have full legal control of the premises they use; and if
the Agency is able to confirm that their programmes are United Kingdom degree level equivalents.
There will be no other exceptions to the accreditation requirement for T4 sponsors.