It was very impressive as was the tea comprising of a typically British Scones, with clotted cream and jam, dainty egg, salmon and cucumber sandwiches and some delicious cream cakes.
The day was hosted by the Governers of the school and a very interesting address was made by Baroness Garden on the importance of British education as being one of the UKs biggest and most important exports. Educating overseas students in the UK is an industry that generates 28 billion pounds per year to our economy which is greater than the banking sector. Baroness Garden thanked the guardianship companies and educational boarding school placement agents, including Bright World Guardianships and Education, for the contribution we are all making to the British economy in promoting the UK brand overseas and facilitating the placement of students into UK schools and universities.
She also praised the little known and recognised work carried out by guardianship organisations such as Bright World Guardianships who offer support services to international children studying in the UK.
Discussions then turned to Tier 4 Visas and in particular the difficulties faced by agents and guardianship companys with Visa Extenstions and Change of Sponsors. Lana Foster spoke up as did other companies asking for changes. More specifically in the way the UK Border Agency do not differentiate between age groups and destination schools. We also all agreed that Visa Extensions and Change of Sponsors for children who have already proven themselves to be genuine students should be much more straightforward. Time will only tell if what we said will help our industry but there was a Representative from the Department for Education at the event taking scrupulous notes so we hope so.
Bright World was very pleased to be invited to such a prestigious gathering.
We are close partners of International College, Sherborne School, both in that we place children in their wonderful preparation school as well as providing our guardianship service to many of their students. We thank Dr Christopher Greenfield, the Headmaster for inviting us and we look forward to a promised tour of the House of Lords next year!
