Home Office drops its ‘racist’ survey about foreign students

A HOME Office advisory committee has scrapped a survey designed to assess the impact of international students on their peers after it was labelled a “disgrace”, “divisive” and “quite racist” on Twitter.

The online questionnaire, set up by the Migration Advisory Committee (Mac), asked for students’ views on their foreign-born fellow classmates.

It prompted criticism over its “loaded questions” and that it was publicly available for anyone to fill in online. It asked students to assess whether the impact of “being at university alongside international students” was negative, positive or neutral. It also asked about the impact of foreign-born students on people’s “social experience” at university.

It defined “international student” as “anyone who was born/is a citizen in a country other than the UK and has chosen to come to the UK to study”.

Tanja Bueltmann, a professor of migration history at Northumbria University, said the survey was “completely invalid and must never be used as evidence to inform policy”.

Alexandra Bulat, another academic who helped prompt the survey’s removal, said: “The survey is problematic not only because it included loaded questions, but because it was deeply flawed.” A Mac spokesman said the survey was “not designed to be discriminatory”, but said: “Following online commentary, it has become apparent to us that we will be unable to use the responses”. It added that the survey was “simply an attempt to ask students for their experiences” and “had the potential to show a very positive view of international students”.

However, it concluded it “cannot now be used to add to our evidence base”. The survey was being distributed by universities on their websites, who were encouraging students to complete it by end of May. It was also shared on Twitter by Universities UK, which represents vice-chancellors but after an online backlash, it said: “We will not be sharing it further.”