An inquiry into the way the government treated tens of thousands of international students who may have been wrongly accused of cheating will begin on Wednesday with MPs questioning the most senior civil servants in the Home Office.

The hearing by the Commons public accounts committee is the latest in a series of official attempts to investigate why the Home Office decided to accuse more than 30,000 international students of cheating in an English language test they were required to sit as part of their visa application process.

Pressure is mounting on the department to resolve an issue that has been causing those affected profound difficulties since 2014.

About 2,500 students have been forcibly removed from the UK after being accused of cheating in the exam. Another 7,200 left the country after being told they faced detention and removal if they stayed. Many have tried to prove their innocence in court: 12,500 appeals have been heard and so far 3,600 people have won their cases.

Sir Philip Rutnam, the permanent secretary at the Home Office, and his deputy, Shona Dunn, will join Mark Thomson, the director general of UK Visas and Immigration, to face questioning from MPs.

The committee is looking into whether the Home Office was negligent in its decision to assume that the vast majority of students who took the Home Office-approved test of English for international communication (Toeic) between 2011 and 2014 cheated.

A National Audit Office report published in May concluded that some students may have been mistakenly accused and unfairly removed from the UK and it criticised the Home Office for failing to protect those wrongly caught up in the scandal. The report questioned the quality of the evidence used to determine who had cheated.

In 2014, undercover filming by the BBC uncovered organised cheating in two of the 90 government-approved centres offering the exam required for visa extensions. The Home Office subsequently asked the test provider, the US-based Educational Testing Service (ETS), to investigate whether the 58,459 tests taken between 2011 and 2014 were valid.

The US company made checks and concluded that 97% of all UK tests were in some way “suspicious”. It classified 58% as “invalid” and 39% as “questionable”. The Home Office suspended the licences of some test centres and revoked the visas of people accused of cheating.

The campaign group Migrant Voice, which has been supporting students accused of cheating, has questioned whether it is likely that 97% of people who took the test were involved in the fraud.

Nazek Ramadan, the director of Migrant Voice, said she was glad senior members of the Home Office would be answering questions. “We hope that it will bring to light more information on the terrible treatment of students by the Home Office,” she said.

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Sheikh Amin, a business administration student from Bangladesh who was accused of cheating in 2014, said he felt optimistic about the start of the hearing. About 40 students have already made submissions to the committee.

“This is a really important step. We believe that the facts will finally come out. We hope the committee will put proper pressure on the Home Office to put things right and to save those students who didn’t cheat in the exams. We want speedy action now so we can get back our future,” he said.

The home secretary, Sajid Javid, is understood to have told MPs he is “sympathetic” to the students’ situation, and is due to make a statement, but there is concern among campaigners that the Conservative leadership campaign has removed focus from the issue.

Accused of cheating

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tejas Soni

Tejas Soni, 36, spent 11 months in detention in the UK, accused of an offence he denies, with no right to an appeal in a British court. He had hoped studying in the UK would give him better career options in India. He estimates he has spent £35,000 on wasted legal and tuition fees. He had completed an English-language undergraduate degree in commerce in India before he came to the UK. In 2014 he received a letter labelling him an immigration offender and telling him his visa had been curtailed. “It is the considered opinion of the Home Office that you have utilised deception to gain leave to remain,” the letter read. “You have no lawful basis of stay in the United Kingdom.” He wanted to stay to clear his name but in December 2014 he was arrested by Home Office staff and taken in handcuffs to a detention centre. He returned to India after being released but still hopes to clear his name.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Farzana Boby. Photograph: Noor Alam/The Guardian

Farzana Boby returned from London two years ago, having spent three years attempting and failing to overturn an allegation of cheating. In 2014 she was arrested by six immigration officers during a dawn raid at her home and given a piece of paper stating that she had gained leave to remain in the UK “by deception”. She has no qualifications to show for her time in London because British officials accused her of cheating in the English test and she was forced to stop attending college before completing her degree. As a consequence she is unable to get a good job back in Bangladesh, relations with her family have been badly damaged, and she describes as her life as a “living hell”. Her English was already very good before she left home at 19 to study business in London, having completed most of her education in an American-run missionary school. She said she would not have needed to cheat to pass a straightforward English test.

Kishor did a degree in English literature and economics in Nepal and worked as an English teacher before moving to Afghanistan to work with Nato troops. His English was fluent long before he came to the UK to study business. But in 2014, a month before he was due to graduate, he received a letter from the Home Office accusing him of cheating in the routine English test he had been required to take to extend his student visa. He was told he faced detention and removal. Five years later, he remains in the UK, prevented by the government from working or studying, surviving with the help of food banks. He has spent more than £50,000 on wasted tuition fees and legal fees trying to clear his name. Kishor thinks the government’s willingness to believe that tens of thousands of students cheated was linked to its drive to vastly cut migration, and he blames Theresa May, who was then home secretary.

Naveed Khan

Naveed Khan, 33, attempted suicide after being accused by the Home Office of cheating in an English language exam. While he was recovering in hospital, doctors advised him to return to Pakistan, hoping this would help lift his depression. But Khan has been rejected by his family, who have such faith in the British justice system that they do not believe the UK government could have wrongly accused students of cheating. He says he is near destitute in Pakistan, staying in a community centre for homeless people. Khan studied in an English-language school before he came to the UK and was already fluent, so he was relaxed about the language test he was required to take when he was renewing his visa towards the end of his business degree. In 2014 he was accused of having cheated in the exam. Classified as an illegal immigrant, his bank account was frozen, he was dismissed from his job, made homeless and had his driving licence suspended.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Waqas Jawaid. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian

Since Waqas Jawaid, 34, had his student visa cancelled by the Home Office in 2014, he has been held in an immigration detention centre, his fiancee has left him because she can no longer see a future together, his relationship with his parents has disintegrated, he has undergone severe weight loss because he has had so little to eat at times, and he has felt suicidal. Jawaid arrived in England to study business management in 2010. The following year he sat the test of English for international communication. “It was the easiest English exam I’ve ever sat,” he said. Jawaid has experienced periods of extreme financial hardship. “I was eating boiled rice for two months. I didn’t even have money to put sauce on the rice. I lost a lot of weight.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Raja Noman Hussain. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian

Raja Noman Hussain spent four months in detention after being accused by the government of cheating in the Home Office-approved English test. He met more than 100 other international students who had also been arrested and detained after being accused by the Home Office of cheating. Hussain says he had no need to cheat as he came to the UK with a good level of English, having studied in an English-language school since the age of 11. He has spent five years trying to clear his name so that he can either resume his studies or return to Pakistan without an allegation of fraud from the UK government hanging over him. He has been supported by relatives who have paid more than £23,000 in legal costs. Students he encountered from poorer families were unable to mount legal challenges to the decision and most were deported. His father has asked him not to return until he has proved his innocence.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Bibi Rahima. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian

Since being accused in 2016 of cheating in the Toeic she had taken four years earlier, Bibi Rahima has been unable to study or to work, but she does not want to return to Bangladesh with her reputation tarnished. The process of attempting to challenge the accusation has made her severely depressed; she was admitted to hospital last June feeling suicidal. She and her husband have spent more than £12,000 on legal costs. Rahima, 28, arrived in the UK in 2009 to study chartered accountancy. She chose to come to Britain because of the country’s reputation for excellent universities, and her English was already good when she arrived. The Home Office ruled unexpectedly in 2016 that her visa renewal application had been rejected, stating she had participated in a “serious attempt to defraud” the department. Officials concluded: “Her conduct, character, make it undesirable to allow her to remain in the UK.” Rahima said: “I feel insulted and humiliated.”