The Home Office awards 20 points for the education institution if they are a licence holder. The following applies to the education institution:

a) The education institution must be a United Kingdom recognised body is an institution which has been granted degree awarding powers by a Royal Charter, an Act of Parliament or the Privy Council.  All United Kingdom universities and some higher education colleges are United Kingdom recognised bodies. A United Kingdom listed body is an institution that is not a United Kingdom recognised body but one which provides full courses that lead to the award of a degree by a United Kingdom recognised body.

The United Kingdom recognised bodies and United Kingdom listed bodies that are on the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills website are also set out in statutory instruments (this is supplementary law which puts into effect specific details that are described in the parent act).  These are available on the website of the Office of Public Sector Information, which you can find on the right of this page.

b) If you are claiming points for an HND from a Scottish institution, you will not be required to have studied the HND at an institution that is a recognised or listed body.  However, the HND must have been studied at a Scottish publicly funded institution of further or higher education, or at a Scottish genuine private education institution which maintains satisfactory records of enrolment and attendance.  A genuine (or bona fide) private education institution is defined in paragraph 6a of the immigration rules, which you can find on the right of this page.

The Scottish institution must be on the Register of Education and Training Providers list which is available on the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills website, which you can find on the right of this page.

c) The student tier (tier 4) of the points-based system will be introduced during spring 2009.  After it is launched, students must be sponsored by an institution that is on the register of sponsors. Institutions can start to register from summer 2008.

From summer 2008 post-study workers can meet this requirement of the attributes points scoring section by providing details of an institution that is held on the student tier of the register of sponsors.