Page 7 - ELG2406 June Issue 490

NEWS
UK: rise in Minimum Income

Requirement may be unlawful

The continued rise in MIR is keeping British Citizens from returning
home with their families.

legal challenge to the British EFL teacher Sarah ‘Being told by someone
dramatic increase in Douglas, who has worked in Italy else that I cannot return
Minimum Income since 2007, told The Guardian to my own country
A Requirement (MIR) that she and her husband of 14 with my husband is
for British Citizens to obtain visas years, Matteo Cipolloni, have infuriating,’ said Douglas.
for their foreign partners may been planning to move back to ‘I feel a lack of control
make it possible for EFL teachers her home in Scotland to be near over my own life and feel
to return home with their families. her family, but she cannot meet abandoned and ignored
The amount British citizens the new income threshold. by my government. It is
must show they can earn has Instead they are trying to save heartbreaking.’
recently been raised from an £88,500, the cash sum which Thousands of UK
attainable £18,600 per annum to can be paid as an alternative to EFL teachers married to
£29,000; well above the potential the income threshold before the foreign nationals, as many
earnings of most classroom EFL amount required rises again. of the British Council
teachers in the private sector. This Cases like Sarah’s have led the teachers in Taiwan are,
is soon set to rise to £34,500 later pressure group Reunite Families may feel the same.
this year, a salary only attainable UK (RFUK) to the High Court Meanwhile, the UK
by a Director of Studies working for Judicial Review of the new law EFL industry, whose
in London and the Southeast. An on the grounds that it is contrary teacher shortage has been reduced teachers and now the steep rise in
additional increase to £38,700, a to the UN Convention on the in recent years by the return of the MIR may cut off the supply of
figure virtually unknown outside Rights of the child, and that it TEFLers from abroad, may also married teachers looking to come
the state sector, is expected by disproportionately affects women, be affected. Brexit has already home from Thailand, Tunisia or
‘early 2025’. ethnic minorities and young people. deprived them of their pool of EU even Taiwan.

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