Chapter 9 End-of-chapter question guidance

Entry for work, business, and study: the points-based system

1. How accountable is government for the operation of the points-based system?

Consider different kinds of accountability: judicial, administrative, political and economic.

2. To what extent should employers and educational institutions be responsible for ensuring compliance with immigration control?

  1. Describe the immigration control responsibilities that have been placed on (a) employers and (b) the educational system.
  2. Set out the justification for these measures.
  3. Drawing on publicly available sources wherever possible, such as news reports or law reports, describe the social impact of this allocation of immigration control. This might include the impact on the employment relationship, on students’ educational experience, and so on.
  4. Conclude with your view based on this evidence.

3. Has the government satisfactorily addressed the problem of illegal working?

  1. Describe what problems are created by illegal working and
  2. Describe what measures have been taken.
  3. Come to a conclusion.

4. Are there sufficient protections for migrant domestic workers?

  1. What are the abuses to which migrant domestic workers are subject, and what creates their particular vulnerability to these abuses?
  2. What would protection look like if it were sufficient?
  3. What protection is available?
  4. Evaluate this protection against the standard you established in B.

Is a remedy after the event useful, and what remedies of this kind exist?

5. Has the government struck the right balance between promoting the UK as a destination for international students and preventing fraud?

What are the measures which are in place (a) to promote the UK as a study destination? (b) to prevent fraud?

What is the effect of these measures (a) on educational institutions? (b) students?

Assess the balance and conclude.

Additional question

6. How is a points-based system supposed to work? Do you think the current British points-based system achieves that objective?

How far should a points-based system offer potential immigrants the opportunity to meet the required number of points by a range of achievements and skills that can be substituted for each other? Or is it just a matter of indicating the relative importance of a set of achievements and skills that are all more or less compulsory?

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