About 0.15 million (one lakh fifty thousand) students including 15,000 Bangladeshi students are feared to be driven out of the UK by the end of October and February 2010 when new rules will be enforced by United Kingdom's home office to close down all illegal private colleges in that country.

UK home ministry's border agency, an admission watchdog of international students, has black-listed and closed down 12,000 colleges and other academic institutions throughout the country, which were imparting education without affiliation from the legal authority, sources concerned said. The sources informed that the UK home office's border agency had already published a list of unaffiliated colleges through its website on 28 September and continued arresting the students of those colleges, mostly from Asia and Africa.

The bad news for Bangladesh comes at a time when the country experienced the worst monthly manpower export in September and migrant workers' outflow started to decline due to economic recession in the developed countries. Mark T Jones, director (external affairs) of the London College of Management Studies, told the FE recently in Chittagong that the UK government is implementing a four-phase action plan to bring qualitative change in the education system in the private sector.

Many colleges in the UK grew up during the rule of prime minister Tony Blair when the government eased rules of admission into the colleges. But these colleges were not affiliated as they took many more students than their capacity. "Many illegal immigrants from Asia and Africa went to the UK for education recently. Earning money is their motto, not education," he said. The number of international students in the UK stands at 0.5 million, he added.

-Financial Express