We urge VFS Global Malaysia and the British High Commission Kuala Lumpur to expedite the visa applications of Malaysians planning to start their studies in the UK this September. This is regarding undergraduate and postgraduate offer holders who are unable to secure an appointment with the visa application centre in KL.

The centre has been forced to close and reopen two times now due to reasons relating to Covid-19. We understand that VFS Global is under considerable constraint due to these forced closures, but simply using the pandemic as a reason and not finding a solution to address the current situation is unfair to the students who have been left in the dark due to this uncertainty.

If you were to log in to VFS Global’s website at the moment, you would notice that there are zero appointment slots available up to the end of November. This means that hundreds, if not thousands, of aspiring Malaysian students will be forced to miss their first semester of university.

And although a good majority of students have the option to start their studies remotely next month, this is simply not possible for students who are studying practical courses that involve a lot of lab work such as medicine and biomedical sciences.

We ask VFS Global to increase the number of applications they deal with on a daily basis, as well as to give priority to students who need to be physically present at their universities due to the nature of their course.

To accelerate the visa application process, might we suggest:

-Opening up temporary offices in multiple locations across the Klang Valley.

-Opening up a drive-thru office or an outdoor office to deal with more applicants per day (given that VFS offices in other countries are able to meet applicants at their chosen locations).

-Use the Digital Application Submission service to deal with all the current applications.

Malaysia constantly ranks as one of the top 10 countries that sends the most students to the UK each year, and the pandemic has not changed that in any way. By not dealing with the issue at hand, you are indirectly discouraging Malaysians from choosing the UK as a further study destination in the future.

We appreciate the work of VFS Global Malaysia and the British High Commission KL during these trying times, but something has to be done to address the current crisis.

On behalf of all the affected students and their parents, thank you for your support.