In breaking news today, the UK’s Home Office stopped research study visas from four nations– Sudan, Myanmar, Cameroon and Afghanistan– citing abuse of the system as it seeks to secure down on bogus asylum claims.
The policy is because of enter impact on March 26, with the Home Office declaring the choice follows an increase in people claiming asylum after going into the UK on a legal visa. Work permits for Afghan nationals are likewise impacted.
According to the Office, asylum applications from students from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar and Sudan increased by more than 470% between 2021 and 2025.
The PIE News has been digging into information from HESA to learn which UK universities have hosted the most trainees from the afflicted nations over the previous 5 years, in addition to how student numbers have changed during that time.
Here’s what we learnt.
Trainee numbers from the afflicted countries are relatively low
While total trainee numbers from Myanmar in the UK saw a noteworthy rise between 2020/21 and 2022/23– increasing from 510 to 1,280 and continuing to grow to 2,665 by 2024/25– it stays a fairly little source of trainees to the UK. For context, when international trainee numbers reached their peak in the UK in 2022/23, 173,190 of those were from India, 154,260 were from China and 72,355 were from Nigeria.Student numbers from the other three countries were even lower. Trainee numbers from Sudan, for example, gradually reduced– amounting to in between 395 in 2020/21 and 280 in 2024/25. Meanwhile, the variety of trainees from Cameroon grew from 425 to 575 throughout that period and student numbers from Afghanistan reached a peak of 620 in 2023/24, before falling to 335 the next year. Source: HESA Specialists have actually pointed out that the
four nations targeted by the brand-new visa policy do not comprise the largest share of asylum from visa holders. For instance, Pakistan has the largest share of people who enter the UK on visas and later claim asylum, at about a quarter of the total– roughly 9,000 people. It has actually been suggested that the political repercussions of
imposing comparable restrictions on Pakistan would be a lot more severe, however, due to the fact that a lot of more individuals from the nation concerned the UK and do not then go on to claim asylum. Certain universities appear to be consistently more popular than others HESA data reveals that, although not accounting for a big part of the student body at any institution, students from the affected countries are most likely to participate in numerous UK universities. For example, the University of Nottingham, the University of Leeds and the University of Manchester were consistently popular choices for Sudanese trainees.< img width=" 1024"height= "572 "src="// www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%201024%20572'%3E%3C/svg%3E "alt=""/ > 
< img width=" 1024 "height= "572"src= "https://thepienews.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/image-1-1024x572.png" alt=""/ > Source: HESA Students from Cameroon tended to favour the University of Portsmouth, the University of the West of England, De Montford University, and the University of Greenwich. Source: HESA
Meanwhile, Afghan trainees were most likely to attend the University of Sussex, the University of Essex, Edinburgh Napier University, and the University of Portsmouth.
< img width=" 1024 "height ="564"src="// www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%201024%20564'%3E%3C/svg%3E" alt=""/ > Source: HESA Trainees from Myanmar favoured the University of the West of England, Queen’s University Belfast, the university of Coventry and the University of Sunderland. 
< img width="1024"height="573"src="https://thepienews.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/image-4-1024x573.png"alt=""/ > Source: HESA