BRITAIN GOVT CREATING BARRIERS FOR PRIVATE COLLEGES TO RECRUIT OVERSEAS STUDENTS AS (1)THEY NEED HIGHLY TRUSTED SPONSOR (2)STUDENTS CANNOT WORK PART TIME JOB (3)ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEST ESSENTIAL BUT ALL THESE ARE NOT APPLICABLE TO PUBLIC COLLEGES OR UNIVERSITIES THERE FORE THE PRIVATE ONE BEING TREATED UNFAIRLY August 1.2013 The rules required all private colleges to have “highly trusted sponsor” status with the UK Border Agency and to be reviewed by the Quality Assurance Agency. Legitimate private higher education providers embraced the regulations. However, several Home Office restrictions unfairly disadvantage the legitimate private higher education sector, and this is a growing concern. They exist despite the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills’ stated intention to level the playing field between private and public providers (a policy one might expect from a Conservative-led government). For example, overseas students attending private colleges are required to sit approved English-language tests. While our international cohorts have to pay for, take and pass secure English-language tests such as IELTS, students attending public institutions do not: this is left to the discretion of the universities. And there are further discrepancies in the areas of doctoral programmes, postgraduate dependants, work placements and pre-degree courses. But the most unfair and damaging difference in the regulations is that students attending private colleges, unlike those at publicly funded institutions, can no longer work part-time during their studies or full-time during holidays. This is a particularly curious quirk given that in many cases, private students are studying for precisely the same degree – awarded by precisely the same institution – as their university counterparts. The importance of this issue to international students is exemplified by the recent Hobsons survey Competing Globally. It found that the ability to work while studying is a key influence on potential international students’ decisions about whether or not to study in the UK. Through this regulation, the government has therefore given the publicly funded sector a huge commercial advantage over its private rival – and the consequences have been devastating. As some in the private sector have floundered, many publicly funded universities have moved in to capitalise on the resulting gap in the international student market, taking over struggling legitimate independent colleges or opening branch campuses in London. The universities of Liverpool and Loughborough are just the latest examples to do the latter, a trend that is likely to continue for as long as the playing field remains tilted in the public sector’s favour. Universities’ opportunism here undermines the Home Office’s justification for its different treatment of the sectors. In its response to the BIS select committee’s report Overseas Students and Net Migration, the government states that ending “the abuse of the student migrant route” is “a key part” of realising the government’s commitment to reduce net migration.
Posted on: Sat, 03 Aug 2013 01:41:58 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015