LSBF Highly Trusted Sponsor status reinstated
The status of Highly Trusted Sponsor has recently been restored to the London School of Business & Finance (LSBF) following its suspension from this sponsorship scheme in June 2014. After four years of recruiting students from outside the EEA under this sponsorship status, boosting its reputation as a centre of international excellence and attracting first-class business and marketing programmes, the LSBF found itself a typical example of what can happen when sponsor institutions fail to comply with Home Office regulations.
Compliance is everything!
Following a Home Office investigation in June 2014, the educational institution found itself to be one of 57 private colleges and three universities whose licences as sponsors were suspended due to falsified English language test results from the US testing firm ETS. The Home Office rejected claims that they unfairly singled out LSBF in its suspension, stating that they had “found extensive evidence of widespread cheating on English language tests by those studying at the London School of Business & Finance”.
However, the Home Office has now lifted the suspension on LSBF’s status as a highly trusted sponsor. This reinstatement of LSBF’s Tier 4 sponsor license allows it to begin recruiting foreign students once more.
In a statement LSBF welcomed the news saying “[we have] now been reinstated on the sponsor register as a highly trusted sponsor, which means that we can continue to recruit and sponsor overseas students with immediate effect”.
