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A university has been threatened with legal action for telling a computer science student from India he faces deportation after he failed to attend lectures due to having to self-isolate and paying his fees eight days late.
Aryan Patel, 19, a second-year undergraduate at the University of Bedfordshire, said the news had left him “devastated and suicidal” and that his father, a farmer who has scraped together his life savings and borrowed money from relatives to get his son a British university degree, had been unable to sleep since hearing the news. He said his father had been sick with Covid and that had delayed him getting to his nearest bank to transfer money for the university fees.
Patel received an email from the university’s head of international compliance on 29 March 2021 saying: “We are writing to inform you that the University of Bedfordshire has notified UK Visas and Immigration that you are no longer a registered student.
“This is because you have been exited from your course. We have withdrawn our tier 4/student visa sponsorship. You will be required to return to your home country and we expect UK Visas and Immigration to contact you in due course concerning the curtailment of your permission to remain in the United Kingdom.”
Patel’s first year at the university began in February 2020. He passed his end-of-year exams and was hoping to register for his second year by the deadline of Friday 12 March. However, due to his father’s illness, he was eight days late paying the fees of £6,000. He paid on 23 March and received a receipt from the university.
However, although the university paid the money into its account it had sent him a final warning email on 22 February because he had not attended lectures since the beginning of his new university semester on the week commencing 25 January. University sources say they will refund the £6,000 to Patel.
Patel told the Guardian he was sick with a cough and fever and spent the first three weeks of term ill in bed. One person in his accommodation tested positive for Covid. He also took an NHS Covid test which he received the results of on 1 February. The test was negative but the message from the NHS advised him to self-isolate if he had Covid symptoms. By the time he felt better, university officials had locked his university ID so he could no longer access his course.
On 1 March the head of international compliance at the university sent him an email saying that she would call him the following week to discuss his non-attendance. However, university sources confirmed this call was not made because Patel was no longer a registered student by that point.
His solicitor Naga Kandiah of MTC solicitors said that if the university did not reinstate Patel, legal proceedings would commence: “Whilst I understand how scared universities are of the Home Office due to past issues with student licences it is unduly harsh to treat a bona fide student in this way in the midst of a global pandemic, especially as India provides one of the largest number of non-EU students to the UK.
“If the higher education sector wants to get back on its feet after this pandemic and to continue to rely on coveted international student fees they should show more flexibility.”
A University of Bedfordshire spokesperson said: “All student visa sponsors must ensure their sponsored students are engaging academically throughout the period they are being sponsored.
“While we do all we can to support our students through their studies, we are required under the terms of our licence to withdraw sponsorship within a set timeframe if a student is not studying, for example through non-attendance or not re-registering on a course.”
Under current distance-learning rules during the pandemic university students are given just 16 days to register and start attending lectures. If they fail to attend lectures and pay their fees then universities have a deadline of just 10 working days to report them to Home Office UKVI.
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