As part of your visa responsibilities, students on a Student visa must attend teaching or supervisory sessions and take part in all aspects of your course set by your faculty, including completing any assignments or in class tests so you make good progress. This is both for taught modules and independent study such as a dissertation or research project.
If you are unwell, need to travel home for an emergency, are completing your dissertation or research project, or want to travel for tourism, the list below tells you what permission is needed depending on your situation, how long you can be away for, and the visa implications.
Please remember, if you are interested in applying for the Graduate route visa, you must meet the study in the UK requirement and therefore:
- for a course of 12 months or less you must have studied the whole course in the UK, and you are required to have held Student permission for the whole of this period.
- for a course of more than 12 months, you must have studied in the UK for at least 12 months.
Unwell or travel home for an emergency situation
Up to 2 weeks
If you cannot attend part of your course due to an emergency situation or sickness, you must let your module leader/s know by email and catch up with any learning missed.
This will not be reported to the UKVI.
More than 2 weeks
If your illness or emergency lasts more than 2 weeks, you must talk to your module leaders about whether it is possible to catch up on the missed work.
In addition, you must talk to ISAT who may recommend taking Approved Temporary Withdrawal. You would need to show evidence of your situation.
This may be reported to the UKVI - ISAT will advise depending on the situation.
Taught masters wishing to study their dissertation/research project overseas
Up to 30 days
Students who meet ALL the following criteria can study from overseas for up to 30 days.
- have NO taught modules on their programme
- have NO in person teaching e.g. lectures or seminars
- have permission from your dissertation supervisor to study overseas
- be able to provide the details of their overseas study (place of study and dates overseas)
- have completed the Taught Masters travel form. Once this has been completed, you will receive an email confirming whether travel is permitted.
During this time, you must engage fully with your studies and attend any online meetings with Oxford Brookes staff. Failure to do so is a breach of your responsibilities as a Student visa holder and could affect your visa.
Over 1 month
The only reason you can study overseas for longer than 30 days is if you meet all of the above criteria AND you are collecting data or conducting research for your dissertation and this has to be done overseas, not in the UK.
You would need to provide evidence from your supervisor that confirms how long this will take, and the maximum time you can be away is 90 days.
You will also need to complete the Taught Masters travel form. Once this has been completed, you will receive an email confirming whether travel is permitted.
You would need to provide evidence from your supervisor that confirms how long this will take, and the maximum time you can be away is 90 days.
If you choose to study outside the UK for more than 30 days for any other reason, the University would need to report this to the UKVI, and they will cancel your Student visa. This will mean that you will no longer be eligible to apply for the Graduate (post study work) Route visa. For more information about this, contact isat@brookes.ac.uk..
The 30 days period cannot be extended even if you break it into multiple shorter leave requests (eg. you cannot request to be away for 3 weeks and then request further leave which will make the total absence longer than 30 days).
Research students (MA/ MSc/ LLM by Research/ PhD/ MPhil) wishing to study their dissertation/research project overseas
To study overseas, you will need permission from your supervisor. Please contact the Research Degrees team by email at rdt-researchdegrees@brookes.ac.uk.
The length of time you are permitted to be overseas will depend on the work you are required to do there.
Where you are planning to return to the UK before the end of your visa, authorised travel will not be reported to the UKVI. If you do not plan to return to the UK and will complete from home, this will be reported to the UKVI and your visa will be cancelled.
Travel for tourism during semester time
Travel is permitted during the weekends when there are no classes scheduled as long as you can complete all your work before or after travel.
Travel is not permitted if it means you will miss any teaching, learning or assessment. This is part of your visa responsibilities.
Undergraduate student wishing to study overseas instead of in-person at Oxford Brookes
This is not permitted for any length of time unless there is an emergency as detailed above.
Permission to travel overseas during semester, but need to extend it
You will need permission from the person who gave you permission before and from ISAT.
They will tell you whether the permission can be extended or whether you will need to take Approved Temporary Withdrawal.
Staff will also discuss whether you should apply for Exceptional Circumstances. You will be given advice according to your situation.