Help universities by easing rules on foreign students, report urges
FOREIGN students should be allowed to stay on in the UK for twice as long after graduation to help universities recruit in the wake of coronavirus, a former minister has said.
Jo Johnson, the former universities minister and brother of the Prime Minister, said the students should be allowed to stay in the UK for four years instead of the current two, to “send a clear signal that Global Britain is open to the world”.
He also said the Government should launch a marketing drive to double student numbers from India by 2024.
In a report published by King’s College London and the Harvard Kennedy School, Mr Johnson argued that British universities had long been “tied down by bureaucracy, obsessions with poorly crafted immigration targets and pettifogging rules”. A predicted large drop in international students due to the pandemic is forecast to “expose real vulnerabilities” in finances.
Mr Johnson called for the Government to end “the hostile bureaucracy” facing overseas students by increasing flexibility on visas and English profi- ciency testing during the pandemic.
His report said: “The Government needs to recognise the lasting damage that has been done since 2010 by the inclusion of overseas students in the UK’S target of annual net migration of under 100,000 and by the welter of visa restrictions and hostile bureaucratic barriers … that have had the intended effect of deterring applicants. These have done substantial reputational damage.”
Mr Johnson, president’s professorial fellow at KCL and senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, added: “International education is one of the UK’S few globally competitive sectors.
“Income from it makes it possible to undertake loss-making research and deliver strategically important lab and studio-based courses. To secure our post-brexit future as a knowledge economy and trading nation, we need to go all out to achieve ambitious education export goals.”
Vivienne Stern, the director of Universities UK (UUK) International, said: “Given current pressures on universities and the difficulties they are likely to face … the recommendations are timely – and a response from Government urgent.”