Category: International

  • Labour is learning the wrong lessons from Reform on immigration

    Labour is learning the wrong lessons from Reform on immigration

    The working classes are an easy foil for the dreams of conservative politicians. They are the salt of the earth, proper people who do real stuff, unlike the woke metropolitan elite who sit around and think things but are removed from the real world.

    As Joel Budd points out in his new book Underdogs The Truth About Britain’s White Working Class, they are to the conservative imagination “sensible truth-tellers and bulwarks against left-wing nonsense.” Even more so they are the consensus position on immigration “The mass immigration that the elite has tolerated is crushing their wages, burdening the public services they rely on and filling their neighbourhood with strangers.” As Budd also points out this, well, isn’t true. In 2024 they voted for Starmer’s Labour Party who campaigned on public finances, NHS, and inflation.

    New Labour old problems

    It is with this in mind that Labour’s response to Reform’s election performance is as wrong as it is entirely predictable. Its wrongness could have significant consequences for universities.

    Let’s start with the big results. In May’s local elections in England Reform gained 677 councillors,ten councils, two mayors, and an MP. The votes are spread across the country but as John Curtice points out for the BBC there is an education faultline.

    Reform did best in places that most overwhelmingly voted for Brexit. University graduates overwhelmingly did not vote for Brexit. Reform received less than 20 per cent of the vote in wards where more than two in five people have a degree compared to 43 per cent in wards where over half of adults have few qualifications. As Curtice states

    In summary, Reform did best in what has sometimes been characterised in the wake of the Brexit referendum as ‘left-behind’ Britain – places that have profited less from globalisation and university expansion and where a more conservative outlook on immigration is more common.

    The policy solution alighted on by outriders in the Labour Party has so far been to say that Reform has done well therefore Labour should do things that appeal to the kind of people that vote for Reform. Or, at least, the kind of things Labour assumes appeal to the people that vote for Reform. And one of the key assumptions is that getting immigration down, whoever those immigrants might be, including students, is necessary for their electoral survival.

    Blue Labour redux

    University of Oxford graduate, and Blue Labour standard bearer, Jonathan Hinder MP has said he would not be “that disappointed” if universities went bust because of reducing international student immigration. Presumably he does not mean his own alma mater. Jo White, of the Red Wall Caucus, has urged Labour to “take a leaf out of President Trump’s book” when it comes to immigration. The end of the Labour Party which purports to be closer to its working class roots is moving rapidly and decisively against immigration. Tightening restrictions on graduates, and by extension making the UK a less attractive place to study, has been reported as an idea winning favour at the Home Office.

    The issue with the general public is that it is complicated. On its own, reducing student immigration will not win Labour a single vote in Runcorn in Helsby where Reform most recently won an MP. For a start Runcorn does not have a university so it will certainly not address immigration issues brought up during the election. Runcorn does however have several organisations that benefit from a vibrant university sector. SME net-zero collaboration with Lancaster. INEOS which benefits from the proximity of a university workforce and industrial collaborations. And Riverside College, amongst other examples, as a franchise partner of the University of Staffordshire.

    It is also worth making entirely clear that people in Runcorn also go to university. It’s a particular fault of both an understanding of class and an understanding of universities that this conflation is often made.

    Immigration, immigration, immigration

    If reducing student immigration will not make a material difference perhaps it will signal a vibes shift that will bring places like Runcorn on side. Again, here is where the working class will let you down. Analysis of the British Election Study collated by Joel Budd demonstrates that “Young white working-class people are not as liberal as young white middle-class people. But when it comes to immigration and race, they resemble them more closely than they resemble old white working-class people.” Again, there is just not a long term winning strategy in discouraging student and graduate migration.

    For universities this might be comforting but it isn’t the point.

    The extent to which anyone is willing to defend student immigration is the question of the extent to which they are willing to defend the value of universities. The value of universities is felt in exports and jobs but it is most directly felt on the extent to which the effects of a university make a place feel better. The thing that Boris Johnson, or at least his advisors, understood that higher education consistently has not is that people see politics through their places. Crime. Clean high streets. Local shops. Good jobs. Green spaces. Feeling safe to go out at night. And the myriad of tangible things that make up a place.

    In policy terms the absolute antithesis of levelling up are reforms which will depress international student numbers. The last thing Runcorn needs is a poorer Liverpool and weaker universities. The challenge for universities is to tilt the scale toward being popular not just being valuable. So popular as to make decisions on cutting student immigration culturally and electorally harder not just economically wrongheaded.

    The question then is how can universities do things in places that feel like they are doing good as well as actually doing good.

    A day like today is not for soundbites

    A key question is how infrastructure can be use toward a broad and good civic end. For example, of all of the things that the University of Liverpool did during Covid (of which there were many I have direct experience of, having worked there), the one that looms largest in my memory is when it gave up its car parks for NHS staff. Not the vaccines it helped develop or the PPE it manufactured but a low cost, high kindness gesture that resonated with people at the time. The other part of this is how largely universities loom in local communities. The extent to which their infrastructure, offices, shops, cafes, and other buildings and amenities are dispersed across the towns, cities, and localities so their presence has a resonance with the lives of people from day to day. People will often be aware of a university where it precedes the word hospital. There are opportunities for other collaborative infrastructures.

    Universities tend to be pretty good at turning their research into lectures, experiments, and days out for young people in an education setting. They are less good at making their research experiential for adults. Light Years by the University of Durham (full disclosure: I volunteer in supporting this work) has taken research to places people actually gather, places of worship, highstreets, and places of local interest across Durham county, as opposed to just the city.

    And it’s harder to articulate or even work out, but the extent to which local people feel universities are on their side matters. The cultural closeness universities build to their populations is not always about what they do but whether local people feeling it’s “their” or “the” university. There is no magic bullet for this beyond the slow grind of knowing a local place and acting with it.

    The political vibes risk overtaking a political reality. The key to Labour winning back its voters is to make tangible differences in the places they live. The economic headroom for them to do that runs through higher education institutions and their success. The permission to do so depends on people feeling like universities are a thing worth saving even with difficult political trades offs.

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  • The UK can seize the opportunity from US academia’s brain drain

    The UK can seize the opportunity from US academia’s brain drain

    The American higher education system, long admired as a global bastion of innovation, faces an existential threat. Since early 2025, sweeping federal funding cuts and politically motivated restrictions have destabilised universities, echoing the mid-twentieth century flight of European scientists to the USA – but with the roles reversed.

    This time, the UK has a chance to emerge as a refuge for displaced talent. To do so, it must act decisively, blending strategic policy with moral clarity.

    Academia unravelled

    Federal grants have historically fuelled breakthroughs in US universities, from cancer therapies to artificial intelligence. However, recent policies have transformed funding into a tool of ideological control. Take Columbia University, which lost $400 million in federal contracts after refusing to dismantle its diversity initiatives. Or Dr Naomi Lee, a public health researcher in Arizona, whose decade-long NIH-funded programme linking indigenous students to STEM careers was abruptly defunded. “They told us our work ‘promoted division,’” she says. “But our data showed it was bridging gaps.”

    The consequences ripple beyond individual projects. At Johns Hopkins, layoffs have gutted labs studying pediatric vaccines. Graduate students at Southern Illinois University, already grappling with shrinking state support, now face indefinite pauses on dissertations reliant on federal grants. “I’ve seen colleagues pack up microscopes and hard drives,” says Dr Raj Patel, a materials scientist at SIU. “They’re not just leaving institutions – they’re leaving the country.”

    This climate of fear mirrors Europe’s 1930s, when scholars fled fascism for American shores. Albert Einstein, denied a professorship in Nazi Germany, reshaped US physics. Enrico Fermi’s reactor experiments at the University of Chicago laid groundwork for the atomic age. Today, the US risks squandering this legacy – and the UK can learn from history.

    Post-war America’s scientific dominance wasn’t accidental. Programmes like the Rockefeller Foundation’s refugee fellowships lured talent with visas, funding, and academic freedom. Similarly, the UK’s response must be proactive. Canada’s “Tech Talent Strategy,” which fast-tracked visas for 3,000 displaced US researchers in 2025, offers a blueprint. But Britain’s advantages – language, elite universities, and shared research traditions – could yield even greater rewards.

    Here’s how

    Simplify pathways for displaced scholars: the UK’s Global Talent Visa, while robust, remains underutilised. Streamlining applications for researchers in contested fields – climate science, EDI, public health – would signal openness. Pair this with grants to offset relocation costs, as Germany’s Alexander von Humboldt Foundation does.

    Forge strategic institutional partnerships: UK higher education institutions should leverage ties with US peers under duress. Imagine Cambridge and Columbia co-funding a “satellite lab” in Cambridge for researchers fleeing US restrictions. During the Cold War, the CERN particle accelerator thrived through multinational collaboration.

    Target gaps in the US research landscape: The Trump administration’s aversion to “politicised” fields has left vacuums. The NIH’s 2025 freeze on gender-affirming care research stalled dozens of clinical trials. By prioritising such areas, UK funders could attract top talent while addressing unmet needs.

    Mobilise private and philanthropic support: A modern “research sanctuary fund” could operate on this principle – pooling resources from philanthropic organisations, ethical investors, and forward-thinking corporations to create a safety net for displaced researchers. Unlike traditional grants tied to narrow deliverables, this fund might prioritise intellectual freedom, offering multi-year support for teams whose work has been deemed “controversial” or politically inconvenient elsewhere.

    The power of such a fund lies in its ability to align diverse interests. Corporate partners, for instance, could gain early access to breakthroughs in exchange for underwriting lab costs, while higher education institutions might leverage these partnerships to expand their global research networks. To attract talent, the fund could experiment with hybrid models – pairing academic stipends with industry fellowships, or offering “innovation visas” that fast-track relocation for researchers whose expertise fills critical gaps in national priorities like AI ethics or climate resilience.

    Speed would be essential. When a government abruptly withdraws funding, researchers don’t have years to navigate bureaucracy. A streamlined application process – perhaps involving peer endorsements rather than exhaustive proposal requirements – could allow decisions within weeks, not months. The goal? To position the UK as the default destination for thinkers seeking stability, not just survival.

    Critics might argue this approach risks politicising philanthropy. But that’s precisely the point. In an era where knowledge itself is increasingly weaponised, protecting open inquiry becomes a radical act. By framing the fund as a defence of academic sovereignty, backers could transcend traditional charity narratives, appealing to those who view intellectual migration not as a crisis to manage but a talent pipeline to cultivate.

    Navigating challenges

    Any ambitions for the UK to become a global hub for displaced academic talent face undeniable obstacles. Lingering funding shortfalls following Brexit, coupled with persistent political resistance to immigration, threaten to undermine even the most well-intentioned initiatives. The bureaucratic realities – such as visa processing times stretching to six months – create additional friction at precisely the moment when speed and flexibility are most critical.

    Yet these challenges only underscore the urgency of action. The competition for top-tier researchers has never been more intense. Countries like Canada and Germany have already streamlined their immigration systems to capitalize on the shifting academic landscape, offering faster visa approvals and more generous relocation packages. Every day of delay risks ceding ground to these rivals, eroding the UK’s long-term position as a leader in research and innovation.

    The choice is stark: adapt quickly or accept a diminished role in shaping the future of global scholarship. Addressing these hurdles will require more than piecemeal solutions – it demands a fundamental rethinking of how the UK attracts and retains intellectual talent. This means not only expediting visa processes but also confronting deeper questions about funding priorities and public narratives around immigration. The alternative – watching as the world’s best minds bypass Britain for more welcoming shores – would represent a historic missed opportunity.

    A question of values

    This isn’t merely about poaching talent. It’s about safeguarding the ethos of academia – curiosity, collaboration, dissent – at a time when the US is retreating from these principles. When the University of Frankfurt dismissed Einstein in 1933, he didn’t just bring equations to Princeton; he brought a belief that science should transcend borders and ideologies.

    The UK now faces a similar crossroads. By opening its doors, it can honour the spirit of figures like Rosalind Franklin, whose X-ray work in London (though overlooked in her lifetime) underpinned DNA discovery. It can also modernise its economy: a 2024 Royal Society study found that every pound invested in migrant researchers yields four pounds in patents and spin-offs.

    History rarely offers second chances. The UK has an extraordinary, fleeting opportunity to redefine itself as a global hub for free inquiry – one that could echo America’s post-war ascent. This requires more than visas and funding; it demands a public commitment to academia as a force for progress, not a political pawn.

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  • Inclusivity beyond the buzzwords | Wonkhe

    Inclusivity beyond the buzzwords | Wonkhe

    Universities highlight language support programs as proof of their commitment to inclusivity, yet these offerings are often expensive, overly prescriptive, optional, and poorly integrated.

    Pre-sessional provision comes with hefty price tags, making language support a privilege rather than a right. Students who cannot afford them are either excluded from higher education or forced to struggle in degree programs where linguistic preparedness is assumed rather than supported.

    I once supported a postgraduate student from East Asia who was excelling in her subject knowledge but consistently received vague feedback like “lack of critical engagement” on her assignments.

    She was deeply confused – she had addressed all the questions and provided detailed analysis. In our one-to-one tutorials, it became clear that the issue was not her understanding of the topic, but that she hadn’t been explicitly taught what criticality looks like linguistically in UK academic culture.

    No one had ever shown her how to signal argument structure or contrast ideas subtly in writing. Despite her intelligence and effort, she was left to decode these expectations on her own, and it affected both her grades and her confidence.

    What does it say about our commitment to inclusion when students are expected to navigate invisible academic norms alone?

    Supplementary or fundamental?

    To make matters worse, in-sessional provision, where available, is often treated as an afterthought rather than an integrated resource, leaving students struggling to meet academic demands or seeking help on their own time while managing intensive timetables, packed with lectures, assignments, and deadlines.

    This approach positions language support as a supplementary service rather than a fundamental component of academic success, reinforcing the notion that multilingual students must “catch up” instead of valuing their linguistic abilities as assets.

    In one programme I supported, attendance at in-sessional sessions was minimal at first – not because students didn’t need them, but because they didn’t know they existed. There was limited to zero visibility of these educational initiatives, and many students were unaware of how language development related to academic success.

    It wasn’t until we launched a more systematic approach to promotion – class presentations, VLE announcements, email campaigns, ads on campus screens, fliers, and peer recommendations – that attendance noticeably increased. Word of mouth became our most effective tool, which was both encouraging and telling. If in-sessional provision only gains traction through backdoor advocacy, how inclusive is that, really?

    Shortcomings, however, appear to extend far beyond language provision. Pedagogical practices in many institutions remain stubbornly monolingual, built on the assumption that a single teaching model can work for all students, regardless of their linguistic and cultural backgrounds.

    This one-size-fits-all approach, which assumes uniformity in learning needs and styles, disregards the diverse ways students engage with knowledge. Standardised teaching methods leave little room for flexibility, forcing students to conform rather than allowing for adaptability and meaningful engagement.

    Conformity or critical thinking?

    Nowhere is this more evident than in assessment. Universities continue to rely on rigid, English-centric evaluation methods including essays, presentations, and exams graded against standardised linguistic norms, disadvantaging multilingual students rather than valuing their perspectives.

    If inclusivity truly mattered, assessments would prioritise critical thinking, originality, and academic engagement over strict linguistic conformity. Instead, institutions uphold traditional models that often disadvantage students from diverse linguistic backgrounds. For example, I once co-marked a brilliant essay that presented a nuanced critique of policy frameworks. It was downgraded – not for weak argumentation – but for not aligning with “expected” academic language norms.

    Despite offering original insights and drawing on a range of interdisciplinary sources, the essay was penalised for its occasional non-standard syntax and limited use of discipline-specific vocabulary. Rather than recognising the intellectual rigour of the argument, the feedback focused almost exclusively on surface-level language issues. How does that reflect the critical thinking we claim to value?

    While universities struggle to create truly inclusive academic environments, the burden of making the system work falls on EAP practitioners and frontline educators, who are expected to foster inclusivity despite being overstretched, underpaid, and under-resourced. Many receive either little or no formal training in multilingual pedagogies, yet they are tasked with ensuring student success within a rigid system that resists adaptation. From personal experience, I can say that navigating this contradiction is emotionally and professionally draining.

    I’ve sat in staff meetings where the pressing need to be inclusive was discussed, only to return to classrooms with no budget for updated materials, no time allocation to work on such updates, and no training on how to implement the very principles being endorsed.

    At times, I’ve been expected to “embed inclusive practice” without any clear guidance on what that actually means in context, leaving me to interpret and apply vague directives on my own. This disconnect creates a sense of frustration and helplessness – wanting to support students meaningfully but lacking the structural backing to do so effectively.

    The disconnect is glaring – universities promote inclusivity in their policies while shifting the responsibility of implementation onto educators who lack the necessary resources, training, and structural support to make meaningful change. Institutions seek improvement without providing the means to achieve it.

    On top of this, accreditation bodies, which should act as enforcers of inclusivity, are complicit in this shortcoming. While they promote the idea of inclusivity as a core value, their competency frameworks remain vague and unenforceable, allowing institutions to check superficial boxes rather than implement meaningful change – without ever being truly held accountable.

    Instead of pushing institutions toward equitable assessment strategies, embedded language support, and multilingual pedagogies, accreditation bodies enable them to maintain the status quo while advertising themselves as champions of inclusion.

    Integrating EAP

    If universities and accrediting bodies are serious about inclusivity, they must dismantle their one-size-fits-all approach and invest in flexible, student-centered models. EAP should not be an expensive privilege but an embedded, fully integrated component of degree programs.

    Language support must be available without financial barriers and tailored to students’ actual needs rather than forced into a standardised mold that ignores their diverse experiences. Institutions must move beyond the outdated view that multilingualism is a problem to be fixed and instead embrace it as an academic strength that enhances learning for all students.

    For example, multilingual writing workshops, co-delivered by faculty and language specialists, have shown success in small-scale pilots. Why not scale them? Similarly, peer mentoring across language backgrounds fosters both inclusion and academic development. These are not costly solutions, but they do require intention and planning.

    Assessment practices must undergo reform. Universities should move beyond evaluating students solely through rigid linguistic norms and instead adopt translingual, context-sensitive assessments that measure intellectual engagement, not just English proficiency.

    Traditional assessment models often privilege students who are already proficient in standardised academic English, disregarding the depth of thought, creativity, and critical analysis that can be expressed through diverse linguistic resources.

    If higher education truly values critical thinking and originality, its assessment models must reflect that rather than simply rewarding those who conform to narrow linguistic standards. Practical steps might include offering multilingual glossaries during assessments, encouraging multimodal submissions (like presentations or podcasts), and designing rubrics that focus on analytical rigour rather than grammatical precision. These shifts do not dilute standards—they redefine them to reflect actual learning.

    Beyond reforming teaching and assessment, universities must stop offloading the responsibility for inclusivity onto individual educators. Institutions must invest in faculty development, providing structured training in multilingual pedagogies and equitable assessment models.

    Educators should not be expected to figure out inclusivity on their own – institutions must offer policies with clear, actionable steps that guide them in creating learning environments that serve all students, rather than relying on vague inclusivity statements that sound aspirational but achieve little. This might include mandatory training modules for new staff, collaborative spaces where educators can share inclusive teaching strategies, and formal incentives for inclusive curriculum design.

    At the same time, accreditation bodies must reimagine competency frameworks and accreditation schemes to ensure that inclusivity is not just encouraged but required. These frameworks should move beyond broad, generic statements and introduce enforceable, transparent standards that hold institutions accountable.

    Accreditation should no longer be granted based on superficial inclusivity measures but tied to real, measurable efforts in integrating multilingual pedagogies, equitable assessment strategies, and accessible language support. Regulatory bodies must stop allowing universities to simply claim inclusivity and start demanding that they prove it.

    The future of inclusive higher education hinges on institutions and accrediting bodies being willing to rethink not just their policies but their entire approach to teaching, assessment, and faculty support. Without structural change, inclusivity will remain more of a promise than a practice – a feel-good slogan that limits accountability while leaving students to navigate an inequitable system.

    And for those of us who teach, support, and listen to these students every day, that’s not just a policy failure – it’s a deeply personal one. So, the question remains: are universities truly committed to inclusivity, or are they merely preserving the status quo under the illusion of progress? If it’s the latter, then higher education is not meeting the needs of the very students it claims to support. It’s not enough to say the right things – it’s time to do the right things.

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  • An end to sticking plaster politics? Why the government needs to use its upcoming white paper to take a different approach to immigration

    An end to sticking plaster politics? Why the government needs to use its upcoming white paper to take a different approach to immigration

    The Labour Party was elected to government last year on a promise to reduce net migration. Their victory in the 2024 General Election followed a period in which net migration to the UK peaked at 906,000 and public concerns over migration began to rise again for the first time since the Brexit referendum.

    Unsurprisingly, Number 10 views progress on this issue as central to their re-election prospects. Precisely how the government will look to do this is still unclear, yet recent weeks have seen growing speculation over an immigration white paper which is expected to land pretty soon.

    White paper

    A new approach to immigration is needed. Too often, immigration policy has been dictated by the release of the latest migration figures and so the development of a white paper on immigration in and of itself is no bad thing. Moreover, it provides the government with an opportunity to take a more strategic approach to migration policy.

    Prior to the election, the Labour Party committed to a different style of governing which would end ‘sticking plaster’ politics. But how to apply this longer-term view to immigration policy? To be judged as successful, any new approach to immigration would need to see net migration reduced given their manifesto commitment. As such, tough choices need to be made about where further reforms could be made to reduce the overall number of people coming to the UK.

    This creates some obvious risks for UK universities given the importance of international students to the financial sustainability of our sector. Universities UK (UUK) has been clear that, over the long-term, international recruitment should not be the answer to the financial sustainability of higher education institutions. Instead, we need to work with government on a long-term plan, secure increased investment, and explore new approaches to efficiency and transformation in the sector.

    In the absence of a long-term plan to address the underfunding of the higher education sector, any new approach to immigration would, at the very least, need to enable universities to continue to attract international students to study in the UK to prevent current financial challenges from deteriorating further.

    Three tests

    This is no easy task, but it is possible. So, what could a different course of action on migration policy actually look like? I think there are three clear things we need:

    1. A joined up, coordinated approach.

    2. Look forward not back, (as the Labour Party once encouraged us to do).

    3. Draw a line between temporary and permanent migration.

     

    The left-hand ought to know what the right-hand is doing

    The starting point of any new immigration policy ought to be based on having a joined-up and co-ordinated approach. This may seem obvious but would be a welcome change.

    The key opportunity for the new government is to use their immigration white paper to finally align migration policy with wider government objectives. Based on what the Home Secretary has outlined, at least part of this would be to create much greater join-up between the UK’s visas and skills systems so that immigration is not used as an alternative to training or tackling workforce problems, thereby reducing overall net migration. This is a good start, but the white paper offers an opportunity to go further.

    Under previous administrations, there was a distinct lack of coordination and coherence in policy and strategy. This can be seen most clearly in the development of an International Education Strategy – which set an explicit aim of government policy to grow the number of international students coming to the UK, but which then came up against a Home Office who had been instructed to curb the growth in international students.

    Don’t use the rear-view mirror

    With a clear joined-up strategy, the government should then look to shift the focus of immigration policy away from retrospective net migration trends, towards focussing on future forecasts, thereby creating a more realistic timeframe to achieve their strategy.

    It is quite clear that reducing net migration is going to continue to be the focus of government policy. Yet as we have seen, annual net migration focuses too much on short-term migration trends – be it the increase of people coming from Ukraine, or Hong Kong – and doesn’t focus enough on the anticipated impact of recent policy – such as changes to dependant’s which has led a dramatic reduction in the UK’s attractiveness as a study destination in certain countries.

    By shifting towards long-term projections (measured over a rolling 5-year average), the government could then create the political space to actually achieve their wider objectives. For example, providing a longer-term timeframe to work with employers to implement skills and training initiatives to support those roles where recruitment is primarily met through immigration.

    Any future forecast would, inevitably, be subject to changes and revisions but it would represent a far better metric than basing government policy on retrospective and highly volatile net migration trends from the previous year.

    Separate the temporary from the permanent

    A final welcome change would be for the government to distinguish more between ‘temporary’ and ‘permanent’ migration. After all, while many migrants do settle in the UK, many others do not and have little intention of doing so.

    This applies to many international students. They may stay for a few years after their studies, but very few end up remaining in the UK for the long-term and get settlement. Rather than taking students out of net migration – which would only serve to highlight the contribution which international students do make to net migration while ignoring the impact which students do have on housing and local services – the government should look to place greater focus on different types of visas being granted to those coming to the UK.

    There are lots of ways this could be done, but focussing more on those visa routes which lead to settlement (or ‘indefinite leave to remain’) would help improve public understanding of migration and better reflect the fact that many migrants included in the net migration stats do not contribute significantly to the long-term population of the UK.

    Concerns about immigration are unlikely to go away anytime soon, but the opportunity for a better approach is there for the taking.

    Many parts of the world – particularly across the Anglosphere – are currently seeing higher levels of net migration, and how countries respond is an issue facing many governments.

    With aging societies, slowing rates of economic growth, not to mention an increasing number of people displaced due to climate change, conflict, and natural disasters, immigration will continue to be high on the political agenda.

    Through their immigration white paper, the new UK government has a clear opportunity to address this challenge head on and take a different approach to previous administrations and, in doing so, demonstrate that well-managed immigration can be – and indeed is – a force for good.

    In developing a more joined-up approach, while focussing on future projections – rather than retrospective trends – and which makes a clearer distinction between temporary and permanent migration, the UK government could go a long way to developing a more sensible approach to immigration policy.

    The opportunity is there, the question is whether the government will take it.

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  • International students and asylum claims

    International students and asylum claims

    For at least a couple of years there’s been an issue percolating away without much clarity about its extent, causes and consequences – that of international students in the UK applying for asylum either during or following their studies. Staff in universities have at times told us of a noticeable rise in cases, and we also get rumours every now and then of it being on the Home Office radar.

    Over the weekend the government released for the first time some data on asylum claims by student visa holders – previously there have only been figures for successful applications, according to first visa held, which have been buried in the annual “migrant journey” report. These have not painted a particularly clear picture of the real situation.

    So we now learn that, of the 108,000 who claimed asylum in the UK in 2024, 40,000 were from people who had held a visa. Within this group, student visas were the highest share of the total, with 16,000 claims – those on work visas accounted for 11,500, and 9,500 were on visitor visas (all these figures have been rounded to the nearest 500, for some reason). There’s nothing here about the proportion of claims that were successful, or even resolved.

    The stats release with coordinated with an interview with home secretary Yvette Cooper on the front page of The Sunday Times, focusing on the effects of asylum claims on the government’s floundering accommodation system:

    One of the things that became clear as we examined this really rather chaotic system that we inherited is that we have people who are in the asylum accommodation system who arrived in the UK on a student visa, or a work visa, and who then only claimed asylum at the end of their visa. They have then gone into the asylum accommodation system even though when they arrived in the country they said they had the funding to support themselves.

    The Home Office data release highlights that “almost 10,000 people who claimed asylum after having entered on a visa were provided with asylum support in the form of accommodation at some point during 2024” – this figure isn’t broken down by visa type – and that the most common nationalities here were Pakistan, Nigeria and Sri Lanka.

    So what’s going on?

    In the run-up to last year’s MAC review of the Graduate route, there was a rather convenient Home Office leak to the Daily Mail of the numbers of international students who had gone on to claim asylum, covering the 12 months to March 2023 – and broken down by nationality and even institution. These figures, if accurate, showed 6,136 asylum claims made in that year, so the numbers have only increased since.

    The timing and the pick-up in anti-immigration media was sufficient for the Migration Advisory Committee, in its Graduate route review, to feel the need to comment, if only to damp down hopes that they would consider this as a form of “abuse of the visa system”:

    We note recent reports of an increase in asylum applications from those originally coming to the UK through work and study routes. The government may deem this behaviour undesirable and unintended usage of these routes. However, coming to the UK legally on a work or study visa and proceeding to make a legitimate, admissible asylum application does not constitute abuse. If the government is concerned by the rising number of such applications they should address this issue directly – it does not relate substantively to the Graduate route.

    But the issue hasn’t entirely gone away with the change of government and Labour’s relative de-politicisation of international students. In February, the BBC quoted border security and asylum minister Angela Eagle as having her eye on “those coming on work and student visas and then claiming asylum” – she pins the issue on the disorder the Conservatives left in the asylum system.

    This was then followed by Yvette Cooper’s comments at the weekend, along with the new Home Office data. The home secretary was announcing an expansion of right-to-work checks to gig economy and zero-hours roles in sectors like construction, food delivery, beauty salons and courier services.

    Meanwhile in Canada

    There’s an instructive international comparison here – Canada. Last autumn there was controversy in certain corners of the Canadian media when it emerged that almost 12,000 asylum claims had been made by international students in 2023, rising to more than 13,600 in the first nine months of 2024.

    The potential for political fallout was enough for immigration minister Marc Miller to write to the Canadian College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants over the “important and concerning issue”, saying:

    I am concerned by reports that some of these students are being counselled by third parties to do so and to provide false information… I request that the College look into the possibility that licensed immigration consultants are illegitimately advising international students to claim asylum.

    This took place against a backdrop of the Canadian government instituting a series of caps on international student numbers, and restrictions on post-study work, ahead of a general election this year.

    Policy levers

    The UK government has pledged to substantially cut the number of people in temporary accommodation with claims or appeals pending – it’s a policy objective driven both by Treasury imperatives to cut the ballooning costs and political considerations around being “tough on migration.”

    If international students claiming asylum gains traction as an area for attention – and it’s worth reiterating that the figures show that just shy of 15 per cent of all claims in 2024 were from student visa holders – then probably the easiest policy lever for the government to pull is simply to throttle student and graduate route numbers: avoid overturning any of the restrictive policies introduced by the Conservatives, and harry away at the edges of the system to discourage any kind of return to the totals seen in 2022–23 and 2023–24.

    There’s a question here, though, about whether this is really an HE-related matter. As the statement from one of the universities in the above-mentioned Daily Mail splash said at the time:

    This particular issue is a result of the government’s own asylum policy, which allows visa switching in a way that is outside the direct control of the universities concerned and is not a failing of the higher education sector.

    And the National Audit Office’s recent report on the skilled worker visa found that the number of asylum claims from holders of that visa had risen from 53 in 2022 to 5,300 in the first ten months of 2024. So if it’s not a phenomenon that is restricted to student visa routes, and one that in many cases is about what happens after the period of study, it would appear an over-correction for the government to take any action specifically focused on the higher education system.

    But there are some issues that the government seems to have in its sights. In the Sunday Times interview, there’s a specific mention of the proof of funds that student visa applicants must demonstrate, and how this seemingly conflicts with asylum claims on economic grounds.

    Last September Labour announced an increase in the amount that students must evidence – though it’s still far from being sufficient to live on in most places. But there are plenty of rumours about this system being gamed by agents who assist applicants by parking temporary funds in their accounts, telling them that they will in fact be able to support themselves (and pay off all the debts they’ve accrued) by working while and after studying.

    It’s another example of failure to provide students with clear-cut, realistic information about visa costs leaving them open to exploitation – and an area where the sector should be arguing for more rigour and scrutiny in the proof of funds process, along with a higher sum required, rather than seeing it as a deterrent to prospective students. We’ve also previously covered – anecdotal – reports that students have been advised to apply for asylum when unable to complete degrees within the specified time limits, or potentially for other reasons such as non-payment of fees, though there’s no evidence that this is a widespread phenomenon.

    So there are specific issues here for institutions to get ahead of. Whether that’s enough to move the dial remains to be seen, especially if these latest figures gain prominence and newspapers investigate promises made by agents overseas.

    Protecting students

    Ensuring that vulnerable people are not exploited through misinformation about how they can, supposedly, game the UK’s dysfunctional immigration system should be a priority. If nothing else, there is the pragmatic benefit of heading off further international restrictions and another round of negative HE headlines.

    But more importantly, upholding the right for international students to claim asylum – as well as scientists, researchers and other staff – is of critical importance for preserving academic freedom (among many other things), not just in the UK but around the world. If the growth in claims, and the government’s flailing attempts to address it, ends up tarnishing the need for a humane, well-managed asylum process, everyone suffers. And the higher education sector being on the back foot over asylum, rather than standing up and advocating for its importance, would be a terrible turn of events.

    While the Daily Mail and others might report on growing application numbers from current and former international students as evidence that the UK is not tough enough, too permissive, too generous in the legal protections and recourse it offers to those seeking asylum, the fact remains that it’s an awful system for anyone to get caught up in.

    Just over a year ago in the House of Commons, the now former SNP MP Alison Thewliss reported on a a parliamentary visit to the Bibby Stockholm barge, used by the previous government for asylum accommodation:

    I will take this opportunity to put on record the sadness, confusion and frustration of those on board. Those men felt that they were being punished for some unknown misdemeanour – unable to get any peace and quiet, living in impossibly close proximity to people for months at a time, with no certainty as to when that will end, and their health needs not being properly assessed. The vessel was not intended to be lived on 24/7, and despite the tabloid rhetoric, none of those I met on that boat had come on small boats. Some had been international students, forced to claim asylum when the political situation in their home countries deteriorated. One told me: ‘the longer you are in here, you turn into a person you don’t know.’ How incredibly sad it is that the UK Government see fit to treat people in that way.

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  • These teens can do incredible math in their heads but fail in a classroom

    These teens can do incredible math in their heads but fail in a classroom

    When I was 12, my family lived adjacent to a small farm. Though I was not old enough to work, the farm’s owner, Mr. Hall, hired me to man his roadside stand on weekends. Mr. Hall had one rule: no calculators. Technology wasn’t his vibe. 

    Math was my strong suit in school, but I struggled to tally the sums in my head. I weighed odd amounts of tomatoes, zucchini and peppers on a scale and frantically scribbled calculations on a notepad. When it got busy, customers lined up waiting for me to multiply and add. I’m sure I mischarged them.

    I was thinking about my old job as I read a quirky math study published this month in the journal Nature. Nobel Prize winning economists Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, a husband and wife research team at MIT, documented how teenage street sellers who were excellent at mental arithmetic weren’t good at rudimentary classroom math. Meanwhile, strong math students their same age couldn’t calculate nearly as well as impoverished street sellers.

    “When you spend a lot of time in India, what is striking is that these market kids seem to be able to count very well,” said Duflo, whose primary work in India involves alleviating poverty and raising the educational achievement of poor children.  “But they are really not able to go from street math to formal math and vice versa.”

    Related: Our free weekly newsletter alerts you to what research says about schools and classrooms.

    In a series of experiments, Duflo’s field staff in India pretended to be ordinary shoppers and purposely bought unusual quantities of items from more than 1,400 child street sellers in Delhi and Kolkata. A purchase might be 800 grams of potatoes at 20 rupees per kilogram and 1.4 kilograms of onions at 15 rupees per kilogram. Most of the child sellers quoted the correct price of 37 rupees and gave the correct change from a 200 rupee note without using a calculator or pencil and paper. The odd quantities were to make sure the children hadn’t simply memorized the price of common purchases. They were actually making calculations. 

    However, these same children, the majority of whom were 14 or 15 years old, struggled to solve much simpler school math problems, such as basic division. (After making the purchases, the undercover shoppers revealed their identities and asked the sellers to participate in the study and complete a set of abstract math exercises.)

    The market sellers had some formal education. Most were attending school part time, or had previously been in school for years.

    Duflo doesn’t know how the young street sellers learned to calculate so quickly in their heads. That would take a longer anthropological study to observe them over time. But Duflo was able to glean some of their strategies, such as rounding. For example, instead of multiplying 490 by 20, the street sellers might multiply 500 by 20 and then remove 10 of the 20s, or 200. Schoolchildren, by contrast, are prone to making lengthy pencil and paper calculations using an algorithm for multiplication. They often don’t see a more efficient way to solve a problem.

    Lessons from this research on the other side of the world might be relevant here in the United States. Some cognitive psychologists theorize that learning math in a real-world context can help children absorb abstract math and apply it in different situations. However, this Indian study shows that this type of knowledge transfer probably won’t happen automatically or easily for most students. Educators need to figure out how to better leverage the math skills that students already have, Duflo said. Easier said than done, I suspect.  

    Related: Do math drills help children learn?

    Duflo says her study is not an argument for either applied or abstract math.  “It would be a mistake to conclude that we should switch to doing only concrete problems because we also see that kids who are extremely good at concrete problems are unable to solve an abstract problem,” she said. “And in life, at least in school life, you’re going to need both.” Many of the market children ultimately drop out of school altogether.

    Back at my neighborhood farmstand, I remember how I magically got the hang of it and rarely needed pencil and paper after a few months. Sadly, the Hall farm is no longer there for the town’s children to practice mental math. It’s now been replaced by a suburban subdivision of fancy houses. 

    Contact staff writer Jill Barshay at 212-678-3595 or [email protected].

    This story about applied math was written by Jill Barshay and produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Proof Points and other Hechinger newsletters.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

    Join us today.

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  • How China Can Respond to America’s Tariffs (Michael Hudson)

    How China Can Respond to America’s Tariffs (Michael Hudson)

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  • The US Will Lose To China If It Doesn’t Stop (Rogue Rocket)

    The US Will Lose To China If It Doesn’t Stop (Rogue Rocket)

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  • UK universities and the war in Gaza

    UK universities and the war in Gaza

    2024 was a difficult year for UK higher education, particularly in the international arena.

    Universities from all parts of the sector struggled to meet their overseas student recruitment targets in an increasingly competitive global market. Some international research collaborations – once encouraged by governments and funding councils – came under tighter scrutiny.

    And many campuses were rocked by protests over the conflict in the Middle East. I have touched on the last of these issues in a previous Wonkhe article – but it is worth revisiting in the light of ongoing tensions.

    Campus protests

    There are wars underway in diverse parts of the world – last year saw serious loss of life in Ukraine, Sudan, Myanmar and Yemen, to name only a few. However, nowhere attracts the attention of staff and students like the invasion of the Gaza Strip which followed the 7 October attack on Israel and the abduction of hundreds of civilian hostages.

    Some argue that this is unfair or, at least, disproportionate – why has Israel faced so much criticism when other regimes have committed atrocities against civilian populations with no demonstrations on British campuses? While that is undeniable, it is also true that the Palestinian people in Gaza are enduring a horrendous situation; despite the recent ceasefire, tens of thousands of innocent lives have been lost and hundreds of thousands are still denied access to basic essentials. The anguish and concern expressed by staff and students in response to their plight are surely justified.

    During 2024, that concern manifested itself in encampments across 30 or so universities. There were numerous marches, often organised in combination with civic gatherings. The public events tended to focus on demands that the government condemn the Israeli military action and use its influence to stop the war.

    On campus, the centre of attention was slightly different, with pressure on university administrations not only to provide financial support for Palestinian scholars but also to disinvest in companies which supplied arms to Israel. This drew on a longer running campaign which argued that any investment in the arms trade is fundamentally immoral. The incoming Labour government’s withdrawal of some export licences has not changed the situation – the issue has become a rallying point for those who feel powerless to alleviate the suffering of innocent people in the war zone.

    Formulating a response

    The protests have put university managers under considerable pressure. Initially, administrators were reluctant to say anything, being anxious to avoid alienating different groups or to make individuals who had an affiliation with Israel feel under attack. UK senior managers were also aware of the deep divisions on some American campuses – several heads of institutions resigned after making infelicitous statements while navigating between radical student opinion and aggrieved benefactors.

    Even so, quite quickly senior managers in British universities began to share ideas and formulate a common position. This generally involved voicing support for academic freedom and freedom of expression while calling on protestors to respect the position of others. There were nuances – some institutions banned flags or outlawed certain contentious slogans; several announced that they would not talk to activists until camps were disbanded. In the face of prolonged disruption, a few resorted to legal interventions to remove tented villages.

    For the most part, though, UK universities engaged with all shades of opinion, facilitated peaceful protest and sought to foster rather than stifle debate. The monthly colloquies at meetings organised by Universities UK were supplemented by occasional reflective discussions at events elsewhere.

    Like others, the University of Glasgow’s senior management and university court (the governing body) considered the ethical position as well as the politics of the situation. We communicated regularly with the wider community, reached out to activists and met with faith groups, student representatives, civic leaders and national bodies.

    A key concern was to ensure that students (especially, in this instance, Jewish and Muslim students and staff) always felt welcome and safe on campus. We were one of the first institutions to call for the release of the hostages and a humanitarian ceasefire. The university issued regular reminders about good conduct but did not rush to take disciplinary action against individuals. When students occupied a building, senior managers met with the leaders; we permitted a peaceful demonstration outside the door of the governing body meeting. In response to Students’ Representative Council (SRC) and trade union demands, we undertook a widespread consultation on disinvestment in the arms trade.

    Despite vociferous calls from students and trade unions, Glasgow’s Court voted two-to-one against disinvestment; following a thoughtful discussion, a majority agreed with senior managers that it was morally right for the UK to have a defence sector and that this should be distinguished both from the conflict in the Middle East and from the question of which countries the UK sold arms to. In essence, the Court’s position was unchanged from 2020, when officers were instructed to write to government ministers calling for tighter restrictions on sales to countries which breached international law, or which had poor human rights records.

    Towards reconstruction

    The decision on disinvestment does not constitute the sum of our response to the situation in the Middle East. Alongside this, we have sought to build on Glasgow’s status as a University of Sanctuary through practical action in support of those suffering in Gaza and other conflict zones.

    A key aspect of this was the conference we organised in December, in conjunction with Professor Sultan Barakat of Hamad Bin Khalifa University, on the post-war reconstruction of higher education in Gaza.  With most university campuses in the area reduced to rubble, reconstruction might seem like a momentous task, but the event attracted nearly 200 registrations. It drew strong support from UK universities and significant engagement from colleagues based in the Middle East.

    The conference delegates heard directly from victims of the conflict. They learned of its disastrous impact and considered academic analyses of aid interventions (often meagre and inadequate) as well as efforts to support students and academics to continue their studies. The attendees engaged in the difficult task of identifying how UK higher education can best support universities in the region to rebuild.

    Key messages included the undying hunger of Palestinians in Gaza for higher education, their determination to create a better future and the belief that, with international support, all obstacles to reconstruction can be overcome. Scotland’s former First Minister Humza Yousaf (who gave a moving address in the main Glasgow synagogue following the 7 October attack on Israel) told the conference: “this is not about taking sides – it’s about being pro-humanity.”

    The conversation will not cease – we intend to reconvene in Qatar and online in the spring, and to strengthen links with colleagues in key agencies, such as the Council for At-Risk Academics (CARA), who attended the conference. We will continue to draw support from a coalition of interests, including the UCU, whose local representatives actively supported the event.

    In the coming semester, we anticipate further protest and vigorous debate at Glasgow over the correct response to the war in Gaza and its aftermath.  The situation there remains desperate and the prospects for a lasting peace – for Palestinians, Israelis and Lebanese alike – are still very uncertain. But the events of the past few days should give us hope, and we in the higher education sector should do everything we can to advance the cause of peace and reconstruction. By identifying solutions to age-old problems, sharing our resources and giving practical assistance to colleagues in need, we can help make hope a reality.

    The author is writing in a personal capacity.

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  • UKVI is tightening the rules on international student attendance

    UKVI is tightening the rules on international student attendance

    Back in April you’ll recall that UKVI shared a draft “remote delivery” policy with higher education providers for consultation.

    That process is complete – and now it’s written to providers to confirm the detail of the new arrangements.

    Little has changed in the proposal from last Spring – there are some clarifications on how it will apply, but the main impact is going to be on providers and students who depend, one way or another, on some of their teaching not being accessed “in person”.

    The backstory here is that technically, all teaching for international students right now is supposed to be in-person. That was relaxed during the pandemic for obvious reasons – and since, the rapid innovations in students being able to access types of teaching (either synchronously or asynchronously) has raised questions about how realistic and desirable that position remains.

    Politics swirls around this too – the worry/allegation is that students arrive and then disappear, and with a mixture of relaxed attendance regulation (UKVI stopped demanding a specific number of contact points a few years ago for universities) and a worry that some students are faking or bypassing some of the attendance systems that are in place, the time has come, it seems, to tighten a little – “formalising the boundaries in which institutions can use online teaching methods to deliver courses to international students”, as UKVI puts it.

    Its recent burst of compliance monitoring (with now public naming and shaming of universities “subject to an action plan”) seems to have been a factor too – with tales reaching us of officials asking often quite difficult questions about both how many students a provider thinks are on campus, and then how many actually are, on a given day or across a week.

    The balance being struck is designed, says UKVI, to “empower the sector to utilise advances in education technology” by delivering elements of courses remotely whilst setting “necessary thresholds” to provide clarity and ensure there is “no compromise” of immigration control.

    Remote or “optional”?

    The policy that will be introduced is broadly as described back in April – first, that two types of “teaching delivery” are to be defined as follows:

    • Remote delivery is defined as “timetabled delivery of learning where there is no need for the student to attend the premises of the student sponsor or partner institution which would otherwise take place live in-person at the sponsor or partner institution site.
    • Face-to-face delivery is defined as “timetabled learning that takes place in-person and on the premises of the student sponsor or a partner institution.

    You’ll see that that difference isn’t (necessarily) between teaching designed as in-person or designed as remote – it’s between hours that a student is required to be on campus for, and hours that they either specifically aren’t expected to come in for, or have the option to not come in for. That’s an important distinction:

    Where the student has an option of online or in-person learning, this should count as a remote element for this purpose.

    Then with those definitions set, we get a ratio.

    As a baseline, providers (with a track record of compliance) will be allowed to deliver up to 20 per cent of the taught elements of any degree level and above course remotely.

    Then if a provider is able to demonstrate how the higher usage is consistent with the requirements of the relevant educational quality standards body (OfS in England, QAA in Wales and Scotland) and remains consistent with the principles of the student route, they’ll be able to have a different ratio – up to 40 per cent of the teaching will be allowed to be in that “remote” category.

    Providers keen to use that higher limit will need to apply to do so via the annual CAS allocation process – and almost by definition will attract additional scrutiny as a result, if only to monitor how the policy is panning out. They’ll also have to list all courses provided to sponsored students that include remote delivery within that higher band – and provide justification for the higher proportion of remote learning based on educational value.

    (For those not immersed in immigration compliance, a CAS (Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies) is an electronic document issued by a UK provider to an international student that serves as proof of admission, and is required when applying for a student visa. The CAS includes a unique reference number, details of the course, tuition fees, and the institution’s sponsorship license information – and will soon have to detail if an international agent is involved too.)

    One question plenty of people have asked is whether this changes things for disabled students – UKVI makes clear that by exception, remote delivery can permitted on courses of any academic level studied at a student sponsor in circumstances where requiring face to face delivery would constitute discrimination on the basis of a student’s protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010.

    A concern about that was that providers might not know if a student needs that exception in advance – UKVI says that it will trust providers to judge individual student circumstances in cases of extenuating circumstances and justify them during audits. The requirement to state protected characteristics on the CAS will be withdrawn.

    Oh – and sponsors will also be permitted to use remote delivery where continuity of education provision would otherwise be interrupted by unforeseen circumstances – things like industrial action, extreme weather, periods of travel restriction and so on.

    Notably, courses at levels 4 and 5 won’t be able to offer “remote delivery” at all – UKVI reckons they are “more vulnerable to abuse” from “non-genuine students”, so it’s resolved to link the more limited freedoms provided by Band 1 of the existing academic engagement policy to this provision of “remote” elements – degree level and above.

    Yes but what is teaching?

    A head-scratcher when the draft went out for consultation was what “counts” as teaching. Some will still raise questions with the answer – but UKVI says that activities like writing dissertations, conducting research, undertaking fieldwork, carrying out work placements and sitting exams are not “taught elements” – and are not therefore in scope.

    Another way of looking at that is basically – if it’s timetabled, it probably counts.

    Some providers have also been confused about modules – given that students on most courses are able to routinely choose elective modules (which themselves might contain different percentages of teaching in the two categories) after the CAS is assigned.

    UKVI says that sponsors should calculate the remote delivery percentage on the assumption that the student will elect to attend all possible remote elements online. So where elective modules form part of the course delivery, the highest possible remote delivery percentage will have to be stated (!) And where hours in the timetable are optional, providers will have to calculate remote delivery by assuming that students will participate in all optional remote elements online.

    The good news when managing all of that is that the percentage won’t have to be calculated on the basis of module or year – it’s the entire course that counts. And where the course is a joint programme with a partner institution based overseas, only elements of the course taking place in the UK will be taken into account.

    What’s next

    There’s no specific date yet on implementation – IT changes to the sponsor management system are required, and new fields will be added to the CAS and annual CAS allocation request forms first. The “spring” is the target, and there’s also a commitment to reviewing the policy after 12 months.

    In any event, any university intending to utilise (any) remote delivery will need to have updated their internal academic engagement (ie attendance) policy ahead of submitting their next annual CAS allocation request – and UKVI may even require the policy to be submitted before deciding on the next CAS allocation request, and definitely by September 2025.

    During the consultation, a number of providers raised the issue of equity – how would one justify international and home students being treated differently? UKVI says that distinctions are reasonable because international students require permission to attend a course in the UK:

    If attendance is no longer necessary, the validity of holding such permission must be reassessed.

    There’s no doubt that – notwithstanding that providers are also under pressure to produce (in many cases for the first time) home student attendance policies because of concerns about attendance and student loan entitlements – the new policy will cause some equity issues between home and international students.

    In some cases those will be no different to the issues that exist now – some providers in some departments simply harmonise their requirements, some apply different regs by visa status, and some apply different rules for home students to different dept/courses depending on the relative proportion of international students in that basket. That may all have to be revisited.

    The big change – for some providers, but not all – is those definitions. The idea of a student never turning up for anything until they “cram” for their “finals” is built into many an apocryphal student life tale – that definitely won’t be allowed for international students, and it’s hard to see a provider getting away with that in their SFE/SFW/SAAS demanded home student policy either.

    Some providers won’t be keen to admit as such, but the idea of 100 per cent attendance to hours of teaching in that 80 per cent basket is going to cause a capacity problem in some lecture theatres and teaching spaces that will now need to be resolved. Module choice (and design) is also likely to need a careful look.

    And the wider questions of the way in which students use “optional” attendance and/or recorded lectures to manage their health and time – with all the challenges relating to part-time work and commuting/travelling in the mix – may result in a need to accelerate timetable reform to reduce the overall number of now very-much “required” visits to campus.

    One other thing not mentioned in here is the reality that UKVI is setting a percentage of a number of hours that is not specified – some providers could engage in reducing the number of taught hours altogether to make the percentages add up. Neither in the domestic version of this agenda nor in this international version do we have an attempt at defining what “full-time” really means in terms of overall taught hours – perhaps necessarily given programme diversity – but it’ll be a worry for some.

    Add all of this up – mixing in UKVI stepping up compliance monitoring and stories of students sharing QR codes for teaching rooms on WhatsApp to evade attendance monitoring systems – and for some providers and some students, the change will be quite dramatic.

    The consultation on the arrangements has been carried out quite confidentially so far – I’d tentatively suggest here that any revision to arrangements implemented locally should very much aim to switch that trend away from “UKVI said so” towards detailed discussion with (international) student representatives, with a consideration of wider timetabling, housing, travel and other support arrangements in the mix.

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