Quarantine advice for overseas students returning from abroad

UNIVERSITIES and boarding schools are to be issued with guidance on how to deal with students and pupils returning from abroad after the UK imposes strict quarantine rules tomorrow.

It will include advice on sleeping arrangements, as well as cooking, dining and washing facilities.

Head teachers and university leaders will be told they must decide whether they can make adequate arrangements to quarantine international students on site in line with government rules. If they cannot, then separate arrangements will have to be made “at the migrant’s expense”, the Home Office said.

In a letter to Lord Lucas, the Conwho edits Baroness Williams of Trafford, the Home Office minister, said: “I appreciate that these changes will have implications for providers of higher education and boarding schools when it comes to international students. It will be for the institutions to determine whether they can make arrangements which comply with government guidelines, taking account of any communal sleeping, cooking, dining and washing facilities, and we expect them to do so wherever possible.

“If an institution is unable to accommodate an arriving migrant in a way consistent with the guidelines, the Border Force officer must be informed, and arrangements can be made for the migrant to be accommodated for 14 days [at the migrant’s expense].”

Baroness Berridge, an education minister, said: “I have been in touch directly with the head of the Boarding Schools’ Association to talk about their specific issues. We will shortly be issuing guidance to them, particularly in relation to year 6 international boarders. At such a time as international travel resumes, we will of course expect them to abide by the guidance in relation to self-isolation or quarantine, depending on what is in force at that time. We will be advising them on what constitutes a household or isolation of a household for those purposes.”

‘If an institution is unable to accommodate an arriving migrant, the Border Force officer must be informed’