Pregnant Foreign Students

[Jibby123]

I started this discussion in another thread. Since it was getting heated I decided to move it here. The synopsis is "Can anyone tell me why foreign students who get pregnant are being treated like criminals within the immigration.

The immigration system allows for the withdrawal of visa from any student who misses 10 classes after having a baby. This is scandalous.

Are foreign mothers inferior to other mothers or does pregnancy affect them in a different way?

Some argue that a visa is given for studies and not to have babies but we know that pregnancies do not necessarily as planned especially when students are allowed to bring their spouses along with them as dependants.

Just because you are a foreign student is not a ban on sex.

This situation puts a lot of pressure on pregnant foreign students and is causing them to go through harrowing experiences while pregnant as they worry about their visa status and are forced to attend studies even when they are not fit to. The pregnancy alone is hard enough.

Pregnancy is not a disease, not a crime and certainly not an immigration offence.

WE need to raise this issue to the government so that they can treat pregnant foreign students in a more humane manner."

Here is a link to the original thread and the points that were made.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/pregnancy/1413246-Pregnant-Foreign-Students?pg=1

why should the UK taxpayer cover the bill?

do brits travel to the M east for example and expect free healthcaree, NO.

They get a visa on the basis that they come here to STUDY, its not fair that they then get PG and the UK gets lumbered wth the costs for care. we are struggling as is.

likely an unpopular view. If thhey are that keen to study I cant see why they are getting PG. contraception anyone????

Yes that's right. I don't have a problem with that at all. We're talking about very small numbers, and international students as a group bring in billions of pounds to our country.

Well I do, and I'm one of the mugs paying the bluddy taxes.

The system was clearly being abused, and it's been tightened up. A very small number of people are going to be inconvenienced, so sounds like a good plan to me.

I'd also bet that now that the rules are changed the number of "unplanned" student pregnancies will, amazingly, fall.

A large part of my job is student attendance. It has become a lot more complicated since new immigration legislation. Universities are not like a school the chances of 10 classes being held within two weeks and your time is up is highly unlikely. For monitoring purposes all students regardless of fee status are sent a warning after three absences in a row for one seminar/lecture.

Students do disappear after arriving on an overseas visa. Apart from it being illegal it leaves a huge mess for staff at an institution to clear up, plus you always worry that something awful may have happened to them.

We have had quite a few pregnant students before but only uk fee payers so far.

It is nothing to do with tuition fees at the University itself as someone mentioned upthread.

It is entirely to do with attendance and therefore breaking the terms of a students visa. Male students obviously do not run this risk so for that reason it can be deemed to be unfair to female students.

Did you know some American Universities ask their outgoing exchange students to sign a contract to agree not to marry while overseas on a study programme? Male and female I hasten to add.

they cant be students and not go to classes can they , If they are on a study visa then they should be studying , Of course they should be treated with a bit of campassion , but they should go home to have their babies IMO or apply for another visa to live here ,

SB but there are laws in this country to protect its citizens from being discriminated against, for example, when having a baby.

Those same rules don't apply to the citizen of every country. If you come to this country on a student visa, there are certain criteria you must fullfil, and one of those is that you must maintain a high attendance at university/college.

My SIL is now a British citizen, but she came here on a visa initially - it had very strict criteria and she was scrutinsised to make sure she adhered to it. If she hadn't, she'd have been kicked out. And rightly so.

If you say "please let me come and live in your country so I can study" and that country says "OK", then you have to be a student.

The UK is not a stay and play for anyone who fancies it.

There are a few general loopholes where knocked up students are concerned.

I know I was entitled to nothing at all (was doing teacher training) and had my student loan removed for the 6 whole weeks I took out of classes. No maternity allowance, not JSA or IS - nothing. It was a bit tricky.

But at least I was able to scrimp and take 6 weeks out, these women are not even able to take 2 weeks? Fine if you have an uncomplicated labour and quick recovery, not so great if you don't. There should be maybe some sort of clause to take e.g. 6 weeks out and make them up at re-sit time or something.

Bit draconian otherwise.

(AN care - don't we have either reciprocal agreements or a requirement for insurance with most countries?)

Lots of that was just general SB, didn't mean it to sound like I was sounding off at you. I wasn't!

Although, perhaps if you're a student on a visa in another country then you need to be focusing on your studies and not exercising your ooman right to have a baby. And perhaps taking extra precautions not to might be an idea. You don't have to get pregnant.

When I was at university, getting pregnant would have been a nightmare. I knew a few people who did, and they managed fine, but it wasn't ideal. It's not ideal for anyone, I'd imagine, but it's not really part of the student experience so if the government and the visa doesn't want to support it, it doesn't have to.

Why should a foreign male student be able to father children while studying without losing there visas while a female foreign student has to lose hers?

But he would lose his visa if he stopped turning up to classes.....

Exactly!

The UK does not exist to support people from other countries to have babies.

If someone enters the UK on a sudy visa and then can't study for whatever reason, then of course that visa shudo be revoked.

We are a country, not a fucking charity.

If these women care so much about being able to study, they wouldnt get pregnant. There are very easy ways of avoiding pregnancy!

If you want to start and family and discontinue your studies, you should not remain here on a student visa.

OP, it looks like you've now been decreed as Unreasonable on 2 thread now.

I'd say you should quit while you're ahead, but you're not!

At the rsik of sounding unpopular how would a British student on a student visa to the US or Canada or Australia be treated if they got pregnant while there.

I trust they would retain their visa, be allowed unlimited time of from uni and be provided free medical care for the birth etc....? I didn't think so.

I'm with the government.You're here to study not have a baby.

Because if the babies are born in Britain, they are presumably entitled to a British passport; and the mum would then be entitled to stay until the child is 18. Some people are obviously not above exploiting this loophole in the immigration laws for their own purposes.

I'm not getting massively into this again as you didn't listen on the other thread.

However:

'10 contact meetings' is not the same as '10 classes' and it is open to the university's interpretation. Lots of universities give students of all kinds leave to miss some classes. This rule does not mean a student automatically gets kicked out after missing 10 lectures over 7 days.

I know non-UK students who have babies during their (postgrad) degrees and it works very well - about as well as it works for UK students. I think undergraduate degrees are not well set up to accommodate pregnancy at all, either from a UK student or an overseas student.

You could argue if an overseas student has to stop and go home to have a baby, she shouldn't have to pay visa fees from overseas (which are substantial) to apply again - there should be provision for her to leave for 'maternity leave' and come back. I think that'd be sensible and I should think the reason it's not done is that immigrants are indeed seen as cash cows.

However, I am pretty convinced that the same universities that insist on interpreting the '10 meetings' as 'a small number of classes' probably also kick out their pregnant home students at the first chance. This is obviously crap. But I'm not convinced it's the systematic xenophobia you seem to think it is.

OP - people will support inhumane legislation if it means protecting British jobs and tax payers money.

That's the bottom line.

New mothers and pregnant women should be treated humanely.

Except if they're not British nationals.

Student visas have been abused in the past, I believe - being used to cover economic migrants. Weren't there a load of 'colleges' being run out of back bedrooms shut down a couple of years ago? And I'm sure I heard something on radio a few months ago about NHS 'health tourism', particularly in London hospitals. Couldn't this be an attempt to tighten up on these issues, coming to the UK on a student visa for another purpose? And the only way you can say the visa is not being breached is turning up to study.

if they are no longer able to live within the confines of their visa is there anything to stop them applying for another type of visa for the period in which study is not possible?

so - someone mentioned on the other thread her US scholarship came with maternity leave and medical care paid for, to be fair.

The UK has a really shit attitude towards pregnant women in academia overall.

No they're not entitled to a British Passport molly. That was stopped in the early 1980's as people were doing just that.

Having said that, it isn't that hard to get a British passport if you'er born here and stay here.

I studied in the US. There were no draconian rules about how many classes you had to attend. I took one semester off for personal reasons and it was fine, I finished with a PHD and contributed over a 100,000 dollars in tax payments only while working as a student and afterwards in a full-time job.

The silly attitude that somehow UK is doing these students a 'favour' is astounding. These foreign students are the biggest money spinners and your university fees would be a lot higher if these students did not subsidise by paying often, £25,000 a year or more in tuition, up to £50,000. Add to that the living costs and their contribution to the economy through purchases.

What says that a student cannot study and have a baby? She just needs a bit of flexibility. And that is what is not being provided to female foreign students.

someone mentioned on the other thread her US scholarship came with maternity leave and medical care paid for, to be fair.

But not all do though and in the UK the visa does not.

As someone else said this is not a charity, it's a country. I couldn't afford to have my children while studying, I waited. Why should my taxes pay for this.

I cant beleive how thick this country is though. Thy can save themselves a whole lot of money by making it a condition of every single visa granted that they must have full coverage private medical insurance and if they dont, no visa granted.

Inhumane?

How is it in humane? They aren't killing babies ffs.