Pakistani students face new visa test About 20 per cent of candidates are already rejected on the basis of the paper forms, mostly with suspected poor English skills. But the increase in face-to-face interviews on visa candidates in Pakistan found an additional 20 per cent do not have the grasp of English they appeared to have on their application forms, raising the overall rejection rate to around 40 per cent. Further preliminary tests appear to show that the sit-down interviews can weed out bogus applications from 38 per cent of students applying in Bangladesh, 27 per cent from Sri Lanka, 29 per cent from India and 28 per cent from Egypt. The major cause of these rejections has been poor English, with a large number requiring an interpreter to get through the test. Following the results, the Home Office will now demand more applicants are interviewed in these countries, with 100 per cent of candidates from Pakistan subject to the new strict tests. A Government source said: "Britain is open for business to the best and the brightest. But our message to bogus students is clear. You will be found out and you will be stopped from coming. The revelation follows a deeply critical study by the National Audit Office last month. This study found a huge surge in students entering the country was largely fuelled by fake applications after a new visa system was introduced in 2009. It estimated the UK Border Agency probably let through 40,000 to 50,000 illegal students in this year, largely from India, Bangladesh and China. Most of these people have never been traced. The number of illegal immigrants who pretended to be in education is more than ten times higher than the previous estimates. Immigration officials took measures to tighten the system up by increasing checks on colleges and applicants, but the National Audit Office found its controls are still lacking.