SEVEN Oxfordshire colleges have lost their right to accept international students under a Government crackdown on illegal immigration.

More than 450 language and business schools across the UK have been banned from bringing foreign students into the UK, after failing to sign up to a new inspection system or having their licences revoked.

But colleges told the Oxford Mail they had not applied for the new status because they did not take international students, or did not need the accreditation to run short courses.

Oxford Media and Business School in Cambridge Terrace, Witney-based Oxford International College of Beauty Ltd, and Education aBc Oxford in Headington all lost their licences.

Embassy Summer Schools, which has an Oxford branch, and Woodstock-based Homelingua, which runs educational home placements in the county also had their licences revoked, as did Discovery Summer, which runs short courses at Radley College, and Ardmore Language Schools, which operates from Jesus College.

Berlitz (UK) Ltd lost its licence, but Oxford branch director Rosalind Richard told the Oxford Mail it would not affect the college, which is a separate franchise.

Discovery Summer principal Jane Merrick said the organisation did not need the licence because students only visited for short courses in the summer holiday, and it would have no impact on its operations.

And Oxford Media and Business School principal Andrea Freeman said: “We have never applied for accreditation, because we never have international students.

“What I mind is that we are on a list which is not true.

“I have not been banned I’ve never even considered applying because it is not relevant to us.”

Immigration minister Damian Green said: “The changes we have made are beginning to bite.

“Too many institutions were offering international students an immigration service rather than an education, and too many students have come to the UK with the aim of getting work and bringing over family members.”

Reputable language colleges, which bring in £74m a year into Oxford, say they are losing students to foreign competitors because of Government visa changes. Oxford School of English principal Peter Thompson said the financial loss threatened the college’s existence.