HSMP - Academic Qualifications
Under the Highly-Skilled Migrant Programme (HSMP), candidates score points for earnings, academic qualifications, age and having worked previously in the UK. One of the most controversial aspects of the revised scheme introduced in December 2006 is that a person without a degree (including vocational and professional qualifications) which is equivalent to a UK Bachelors degree will not qualify under the scheme, whatever their earnings. The scheme no longer takes account of work experience, save for awarding points for having previously worked in the UK.
Different points are awarded for Bachelors, Masters, Doctorates and Masters of Business Administration degrees. A degree must be from an accredited institution. The Border and Immigration Agency (BIA) of the Home Office guidance indicates that the either the National Academic Recognition Information Centre (NARIC) or the relevant professional can provide evidence to verify that an individual’s degree is equivalent to a UK degree standard – Bachelors, Masters, Doctorate or Masters of Business Administration.
NARIC information is provided on a website which is usually updated three times a year, in March, July and November. Sometimes the question of whether a degree is equivalent to a UK degree is under review although this is not apparent from the website. For example, it is understood that the guidance on bachelor degrees from Iraqi universities is currently under review but this is not evident from the NARIC website.
The Border and Immigration Agency are currently taking a narrow approach to the requirement that a degree be ‘equivalent’ to a UK degree. For example, they do not accept the description by a relevant professional body, the General Medical Council, that a foreign degree and qualifications are ‘acceptable’ as evidence that it is ‘equivalent’. A court may well have considerable sympathy with the GMC’s description of a degree as acceptable in circumstances where NARIC could not definitively state whether a degree was ‘equivalent’ or not, because it was under review. Individuals whose degrees are recognized by a relevant professional body but not recognised for the purposes of the HSMP may wish to consider taking legal advice to assess whether it is possible to challenge the refusal to accept their qualification.
