This page explains the requirements you must meet if you want to get a licence to sponsor migrants under Tier 4 of the points-based system.
To be a Tier 4 sponsor, you must be an education provider that offers courses of study to students. The only exceptions are as follows:
State schools, including those with sixth forms, cannot be Tier 4 sponsors. If we receive an application for a Tier 4 sponsor licence from a state school, we will reject it and refund the application fee.
If you are an education provider and you want a licence to be a Tier 4 sponsor, you must show that:
See below for more information about these requirements.
Procedures are in place for our approved accreditation bodies to inform us promptly if your accreditation is removed, and to act quickly to check on education providers if our staff report concerns. If you need accreditation but you subsequently lose it, we will withdraw your licence.
If you are subject to the system of public reviews by virtue of public funding or through having been granted UK degree-awarding powers, you must show that you have been inspected or audited by:
If you are a new, private independent school, you must have successfully gone through the process of formal registration in the country where you are located. For example, a school in England must be registered with the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF). Newly established private independent schools will not have an inspection report from the ISI, and must instead provide evidence of successful registration with the relevant government?s education d epartment to support their application. A school in England, for example, must provide the school number that was given to them when they successfully registered with DCSF.
If you are a private higher education institution and outside the system of public reviews described above, you must show that you hold valid accreditation from one of the following bodies:
If you are a private further education provider, you should not contact Ofsted with a view to gaining accreditation, as Ofsted does not currently provide an accreditation service. However, we will accept any Ofsted accreditation report that was issued before this service was withdrawn, provided that it is still valid.
If you have been trading as an education provider for less than 18 months and you are in the process of applying for accreditation, we will accept a provisional accreditation (known as Stage 2) from one of these accreditation bodies, on the condition that you obtain full academic accreditation (Stage 3) within 12 months. You will be given a B rating until you have obtained Stage 3 accreditation. (The 18-month trading period will start from the point when you first start trading, or when you recommence trading following a period of dormancy.)
If you are an overseas higher education provider, you do not need UK accreditation as long as the courses you offer in the UK are short-term 'study abroad' programmes provided directly by you in your own premises. Students for these courses must be:
However, you will still need to apply for a Tier 4 licence if any of your courses in the UK last more than six months and/or involve work placements, or if your students may want to do part-time work while they are here. When you apply for a licence, you will need to provide evidence that:
If you are teaching full programmes to students enrolled full-time in the UK, you will need UK accreditation before you apply for your Tier 4 licence. If you are delivering a study abroad programme through a third party (such as a UK university), the third party will need UK accreditation before it can apply for a Tier 4 licence.
The student visitor route (see below) will be appropriate for some study abroad students, provided that they:
If all your students will be using the student vistor route, outside the points-based system, they will need evidence of your overseas or UK accreditation when they seek permission to enter the UK - but you will not need to be a Tier 4 sponsor.
If you want to bring migrant students to the UK for courses lasting six months or less, they can use the 'student visitor' route rather than applying through the points-based system. For a migrant to be able to study with you as a student visitor, you must:
However, a migrant cannot be a student visitor if their course time spent in the UK includes a work placement - if this is the case, they must apply under Tier 4 of the points-based system.
Estyn is the office of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Education and Training in Wales.
The official body for inspecting schools.
This is the official body responsible for reviewing the quality and standards of higher education in universities and colleges in the United Kingdom.