During a conversation at ICEF in Berlin earlier this week, I was trying to explain that in a world with Brexit, Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and the right wing media telling the world that we’re all different, BOSS’ (Buckswood Overseas Summer School’s) philosophy of broadening our students’ minds is more important than ever, when I was asked “What is Brexit?”
For anyone reading this who is wondering the same thing, in 2016 the UK marginally voted (51.9% leave, 48.1% remain) to leave the European Union (the EU). To this day, over three and a half years later, the UK is still in the European Union, the Brexit leave date has been extended three times (currently to the 31st January 2020), almost every Brexit vote has been voted against in the Houses of Parliament and there is still no Brexit bill stating how the UK will leave the EU and despite this, the British government are telling us to “get ready for Brexit”. However, if they don’t know and nobody else seems to know what Brexit is, what exactly is it that we are supposed to get ready for?
For now, there are some relevant things that we do know and in a bid to put some minds at rest, we are happy to share these things below:
Until 31st December 2020, EU nationals will be able to live and work and study English in the UK as they do now.
Students from the EU, EEA and Switzerland can currently enter the UK with their passport or ID card. ID cards will remain valid as a travel document but will be phased out in 2021 if a deal is agreed.
And there you have it, nothing much to report but hopefully a couple of answers to two of the questions that we most frequently receive.
If you have any questions or require any further information in regards to Brexit and its effect on our students, please let us know and we will do our best to help you.
Check out our other Brexit related blog post here.
BOSS is a British Council accredited language school for students aged 8 to 17 from across the globe. To find out more, please visit www.buckswoodsummerschool.com or contact us here.