UK educates more world leaders than anyone else

BRITAIN has educated more serving heads of state at university level than any other country in the world.

A total of 58 world leaders have qualifications from British universities, while only 57 have studied in the United States.

France was ranked third, educating 33 serving heads of state, while Russia had only nine to its name and Australia had eight.

Among Britain’s alumni are Australia’s Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who studied at Oxford and Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong who went to Cambridge. Elite families are regularly willing to pay high international student fees in return for a certificate from a prestigious UK institution.

In turn, universities aggressively recruit students from abroad – especially China and India – because they bring in a lot of funding as well as talent.

The Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI), which carried out the study, said the number of leaders with connections with Britain could help our standing after we leave the EU.

Nick Hillman, director of HEPI, said he believed the popularity of the UK’s universities was ‘of huge benefit to British influence, and could be especially useful as we negotiate Brexit’.

He added: ‘Not only do these leaders have a British qualification that helped them reach the top, they have also spent time here creating a strong sense of loyalty to the UK.’