‘Leave students out of immigration numbers’
THE GOVERNMENT should not count students in immigration statistics, the Bishop of Wakefield has said.
Ministers have been coming under increasing pressure to change the way they class students, as universities have warned the Government’s policy to cut net migration to the tens of thousands is putting off people from outside the European Union coming to study in the UK.
Bishop Stephen Platten said that Huddersfield University, from which he has an honorary degree, had been crucial in supporting community cohesion in West Yorkshire, “where there are substantial Asian minorities”.
“One of the keystones has been the university’s work with overseas students. It has welcomed significant numbers, notably from Asia,” he said.
“This has been a two-way process, with the university validating degrees in east Asia. That interplay has emphasised those values for which Britain has been famous, including tolerance and good government.”
He added: “Overall, we have established a remarkable reputation not only for tolerance but also for offering education to overseas students.
“In earlier times, other rather less welcoming nations might have been less ready to accept people such as Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud to their shores. Any number of political leaders across the world have spent part of their university education here.
“As the British Medical Association pointed out in its recent briefing, we have also gained enormously from other countries through medics who have trained here and have stayed.”
And Bishop Platten added: “In a wide-ranging briefing, Professor Edward Acton, the vice-chancellor of the University of East Anglia, pointed to a clamour for the rules on student visa applications to be changed.
“It is common sense for students to be in a different category and treated as temporary migrants, so that both they and we can benefit from their attendance at our universities.
“Operating now in a market economy, our universities need to attract overseas students to help to balance the books.”