UKCISA blog
Last week's Warwick Integration Summit provided a welcome break from agonising over the impact of the latest immigration changes. Instead, the focus was on the potentially transformative impact of an internationally diverse campus, and whether we are helping both home and international students get the most of such an experience. I share below my interpretation of and reflections on what speakers said. Any gems of wisdom are theirs, and any errors and confusions are mine alone!
Helen Spencer-Oatey challenged us to think about what we are trying to achieve in internationalising. Few institutions have a clear statement on whether, how and why they are trying to promote integration. We focus on the objective aspects of culture (the tip of the iceberg), and fail to think about the deeper changes (to the subjective realm of norms and assumptions). Or, distinguishing between products, practices and perspectives, we might think we are becoming more internationalised by issuing a Diploma Supplement (a product to explain our grading system), but are we examining our practices (why do we use a percentage scale but not give marks in the top 25% of that scale), and do we really challenge our assumptions (what are we valuing when we award grades)? We should aim to explore and respond to difference in order to develop and grow.
Darla Deardorff reminded us that intercultural learning doesn't just happen as a result of coming into contact with others who are different from us. It needs preparation, a suitable environment and support, and plenty of follow-through. Moreover, measuring it isn't easy - many instruments are available, but if planning to use any of these, you need to know what you're trying to evaluate, and use a variety of methods.
Ema Ushioda explained that the drive to change comes from internal motivation. If we are to enable students to engage interculturally we must help encourage the forces that motivate them, and provide a supportive and encouraging environment and raise awareness of the opportunities and benefits available to them.
My own contribution was to encourage participants to think about a whole of institution approach, covering all aspects of the student experience (learning, extra-curricular, social and daily life), within the context of what was needed and possible within their own institutional context. We need to find ways of measuring whether our effort is having an effect to make best use of scarce resources. And we must remember there is no neutral space outside of culture. If contact with other cultures raises questions about ways in which we should change, we shouldn't be defensive about being British, but instead just learn to be reflectively British.
Of course, much of the real work and insight was in the breakout sessions. While participants clearly face challenges ranging from lack of top-down support to resource and workload pressures, all kinds of interesting work is being done from Warwick's Go Global campaign to Loughborough's Experience the World, and many other examples. Thanks to Warwick for providing this opportunity to share ideas - this is a conversation we all hope to continue.
Monday, 12 March 2012
Thursday, 1 March 2012
Post UUK debate
What was important of course about Wednesday's UUK event was that the very public debate happened, that Universities UK saw it as sufficiently important to put their full weight behind it, that Prof Eric Thomas as President spoke eloquently and openly on the risk of current government policy, and that Keith Vaz MP, on return from a recent visit to India was especially clear about the damage which was currently being done overseas.
Everyone now seems to understand the arguments. All we are now searching for is a political tipping point so that students can be taken out of the migration figures – as most agree they should: they just can’t work out how.
Everyone now seems to understand the arguments. All we are now searching for is a political tipping point so that students can be taken out of the migration figures – as most agree they should: they just can’t work out how.
Wednesday, 29 February 2012
What kind of migration game are we in?
At today's Universities UK Competing Globally debate, some familiar themes were aired around the importance of not throwing out the baby with the bathwater when reforming the student immigration system.
These views are not only coming from the education sector itself: in recent days other prominent voices include the Wilson review of business-university collaboration, which has expressed concerns about the impact of restricting the flow of international research students; comments from John Cridland, Director General of the Confederation of British Industry, about the importance of supporting education exports, as one of the UK's few current commercial successes and Simon Walker, Director General of the Institute of Directors who also fears government visa changes are threatening this successful business.
What most agree is needed to create a rational debate around student visas, is a distinction between permanent and temporary categories of migrant. The government has yet to be persuaded to use these categories in the way they are used in the US and Australia, and still insists that UN definitions force it to categorise students together with any other migrant coming to the UK for 12 months. Yet, in today's statement of intent on the review on employment-related settlement, Tier 5 and overseas domestic workers, the government does state that it plans to "categorise all visas as either 'temporary' or 'permanent'." which, if applied to students, must recognise that their impact is different to those who come to settle, and opens the door to rational debate about whether the balance of their economic and social contributions to the UK are positive or negative.
The other key part of this jigsaw is how temporary migrants such as students affect the net migration figures (the mast to which the government has rather unfortunately nailed its colours). The Migration Observatory have today issued figures on what they call the "net migration bounce": reduce incoming numbers of temporary migrants today, and somewhere down the line you reduce the number of outgoing temporary migrants. It seems that attempts to reach the "tens of thousands" net immigration target are possibly not only misguided, but doomed.
In the complex picture of global student flows, it is perhaps also worth picking up on another recent article in which Philip Altbach disputes that brain drain is a thing of the past: the figures he quotes from the US show that it remains alive and well in some quarters of the world. Perhaps that is inevitable in a world with free movement of capital and (even partially) of labour. But does it do anything to address the global inequalities which are the driving force behind most migration? It's an issue beyond the control of most individual universities - and indeed most individual governments. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't keep it in our frame of reference. Attracting the best and brightest may be in the UK's short-term interests, but not at the expense of countries who have even greater need than us of their most highly skilled citizens.
These views are not only coming from the education sector itself: in recent days other prominent voices include the Wilson review of business-university collaboration, which has expressed concerns about the impact of restricting the flow of international research students; comments from John Cridland, Director General of the Confederation of British Industry, about the importance of supporting education exports, as one of the UK's few current commercial successes and Simon Walker, Director General of the Institute of Directors who also fears government visa changes are threatening this successful business.
What most agree is needed to create a rational debate around student visas, is a distinction between permanent and temporary categories of migrant. The government has yet to be persuaded to use these categories in the way they are used in the US and Australia, and still insists that UN definitions force it to categorise students together with any other migrant coming to the UK for 12 months. Yet, in today's statement of intent on the review on employment-related settlement, Tier 5 and overseas domestic workers, the government does state that it plans to "categorise all visas as either 'temporary' or 'permanent'." which, if applied to students, must recognise that their impact is different to those who come to settle, and opens the door to rational debate about whether the balance of their economic and social contributions to the UK are positive or negative.
The other key part of this jigsaw is how temporary migrants such as students affect the net migration figures (the mast to which the government has rather unfortunately nailed its colours). The Migration Observatory have today issued figures on what they call the "net migration bounce": reduce incoming numbers of temporary migrants today, and somewhere down the line you reduce the number of outgoing temporary migrants. It seems that attempts to reach the "tens of thousands" net immigration target are possibly not only misguided, but doomed.
In the complex picture of global student flows, it is perhaps also worth picking up on another recent article in which Philip Altbach disputes that brain drain is a thing of the past: the figures he quotes from the US show that it remains alive and well in some quarters of the world. Perhaps that is inevitable in a world with free movement of capital and (even partially) of labour. But does it do anything to address the global inequalities which are the driving force behind most migration? It's an issue beyond the control of most individual universities - and indeed most individual governments. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't keep it in our frame of reference. Attracting the best and brightest may be in the UK's short-term interests, but not at the expense of countries who have even greater need than us of their most highly skilled citizens.
Monday, 20 February 2012
Post-Study Work
An interesting little exchange last week between the Director-General of the Institute of Directors and our good friends at Migrationwatch on the merits of abolishing the Post-Study Work scheme and replacing with limited access to Tier 2.
The IoD said it would do untold damage to Britain's interests to summarily evict students with MBAs once their courses had finished and especially as so many of them came from BRIC countries - the UK's leading trading partners.
Migrationwatch robustly replied suggesting that if someone with an MBA could not get a graduate job on a salary of £20K, they were not the sort of person the UK economy needed anyway.
The sad truth however is that many of the 'brightest and the best' - a phrase which the government seems to like to use - do not do MBAs or other courses which shoot them straight into well-paid city jobs. They do project management, engineering, computer studies, architecture, pharmacy, etc etc and could be real assets in companies across the country and in many regions where starting salaries of £20K are virtually unheard of.
As the April D-day approaches, we lament the likely loss of talent.
The IoD said it would do untold damage to Britain's interests to summarily evict students with MBAs once their courses had finished and especially as so many of them came from BRIC countries - the UK's leading trading partners.
Migrationwatch robustly replied suggesting that if someone with an MBA could not get a graduate job on a salary of £20K, they were not the sort of person the UK economy needed anyway.
The sad truth however is that many of the 'brightest and the best' - a phrase which the government seems to like to use - do not do MBAs or other courses which shoot them straight into well-paid city jobs. They do project management, engineering, computer studies, architecture, pharmacy, etc etc and could be real assets in companies across the country and in many regions where starting salaries of £20K are virtually unheard of.
As the April D-day approaches, we lament the likely loss of talent.
Wednesday, 1 February 2012
Perspectives on mobility
Within the UK, we're used to seeing international student mobility primarily as recruitment of international students to full-degree programmes, and comparing ourselves most frequently to the other main English-speaking destination countries. So it's refreshing to look at the latest report from Academic Cooperation Association (ACA):
Mapping Mobility in the European Higher Area
This reminds us that Europe hosts more international students than any other continent, and over the past decade it has increased its market share, despite growing competition, with more students coming from outside the region, as well as the large amount of intra-European mobility that takes place. Of course, there are large differences between European countries. Some, such as Cyprus send more students abroad than they host (a ratio of 1.38 to 1). At the end of the scale, the UK sends very few abroad, and receives many (12 out for every 1000 in).
One unintended consequence of the success of intra-European mobility is picked up in a recent New York Times article, which reports on how European governments are addressing the financial implications of educating imbalanced numbers of other EU nationals. It is a question which has been debated many times in the UK, but can also be seen in recent calls by the Dutch education minister that Germany should contribute to the cost of educating its nationals, and in Austria, where attempts were made to limit numbers of incoming EU nationals to some courses. As the NYT points out, the Scandinavian countries have a voluntary agreement in place to reimburse each other for part of the costs of cross-border students' education, and it argues that a similar system is in effect coming into effect between the home nations in the UK.
There is no sign, however, that any such agreements will become more widespread, and the economic argument is not overwhelming. Many countries, including the UK, have recognised in the past that the even when incoming students receive a subsidised education, the host country benefits from their spend on living and other costs, and often benefits from their skills and tax contributions when they stay on to work.
Although I have long argued that there's a benefit to the Treasury if UK students study abroad, there's no sign that outward full degree mobility will become a government priority any time soon (and the ACA study shows that no countries focus on this in their mobility policies, although some at least enable it through portability of student funding). At best, a slight increase may result from increased domestic tuition fees. As an article in the US "Foreign Policy" magazine suggests, with cheaper fees and tuition at home, the temptation will be to "outsource your kid".
This reminds us that Europe hosts more international students than any other continent, and over the past decade it has increased its market share, despite growing competition, with more students coming from outside the region, as well as the large amount of intra-European mobility that takes place. Of course, there are large differences between European countries. Some, such as Cyprus send more students abroad than they host (a ratio of 1.38 to 1). At the end of the scale, the UK sends very few abroad, and receives many (12 out for every 1000 in).
One unintended consequence of the success of intra-European mobility is picked up in a recent New York Times article, which reports on how European governments are addressing the financial implications of educating imbalanced numbers of other EU nationals. It is a question which has been debated many times in the UK, but can also be seen in recent calls by the Dutch education minister that Germany should contribute to the cost of educating its nationals, and in Austria, where attempts were made to limit numbers of incoming EU nationals to some courses. As the NYT points out, the Scandinavian countries have a voluntary agreement in place to reimburse each other for part of the costs of cross-border students' education, and it argues that a similar system is in effect coming into effect between the home nations in the UK.
There is no sign, however, that any such agreements will become more widespread, and the economic argument is not overwhelming. Many countries, including the UK, have recognised in the past that the even when incoming students receive a subsidised education, the host country benefits from their spend on living and other costs, and often benefits from their skills and tax contributions when they stay on to work.
Although I have long argued that there's a benefit to the Treasury if UK students study abroad, there's no sign that outward full degree mobility will become a government priority any time soon (and the ACA study shows that no countries focus on this in their mobility policies, although some at least enable it through portability of student funding). At best, a slight increase may result from increased domestic tuition fees. As an article in the US "Foreign Policy" magazine suggests, with cheaper fees and tuition at home, the temptation will be to "outsource your kid".
Tuesday, 31 January 2012
70% fall in private sector enrolments
The number of international students enrolling in private sector colleges in the UK has fallen 70% since the introduction of the latest Tier 4 restrictions, according to a new report from the thinktank CentreForum, Tier 4 tears: how government student visa controls are destroying the private HE sector. It attributes this mostly to the loss of work-rights for international students at private colleges. The report vastly under-reports the number of colleges which have closed as a result, mentioning only one. By contrast, at UKCISA we know of at least thirty which have closed, affecting thousands of students, and those working in this sector expect there to be more casualties to come.
The report highlights the tension between Home Office attempts to bring down international student numbers because of net migration targets, and BIS policy to encourage the private sector to encourage competition and reduce the cost of higher education. According to the Independent on Sunday:
Officials at the Department for Business believe it is "only fair" to treat those private colleges who pass the tests in the same way as state-funded institutions. "There should be a level playing field," a source said, adding that good colleges had been caught up in the "collateral damage" of the Home Office eagerness to appear tough on immigration.
It remains to be seen whether the Home Office can be persuaded to look again at work rights for the private sector (and also public sector FE, which has seen its students restricted to only ten hours work a week).
Assuming that change will not come soon enough to help most struggling colleges, we can expect to see a continuing trend of private colleges forging closer relationships with partner universities, looking to the university to "own" the students for immigration purposes. This adds another layer of complexity to for universities in ensuring compliance with their Tier 4 sponsor requirements. It also underlines that with cross-sectoral partnerships widespread, the designation of an institution as "public" or "private" may become increasingly blurred.
The report highlights the tension between Home Office attempts to bring down international student numbers because of net migration targets, and BIS policy to encourage the private sector to encourage competition and reduce the cost of higher education. According to the Independent on Sunday:
Officials at the Department for Business believe it is "only fair" to treat those private colleges who pass the tests in the same way as state-funded institutions. "There should be a level playing field," a source said, adding that good colleges had been caught up in the "collateral damage" of the Home Office eagerness to appear tough on immigration.
It remains to be seen whether the Home Office can be persuaded to look again at work rights for the private sector (and also public sector FE, which has seen its students restricted to only ten hours work a week).
Assuming that change will not come soon enough to help most struggling colleges, we can expect to see a continuing trend of private colleges forging closer relationships with partner universities, looking to the university to "own" the students for immigration purposes. This adds another layer of complexity to for universities in ensuring compliance with their Tier 4 sponsor requirements. It also underlines that with cross-sectoral partnerships widespread, the designation of an institution as "public" or "private" may become increasingly blurred.
Monday, 30 January 2012
Australia's imaginative thinking on finance
Year after year, international students tell us that finance is one of the biggest hurdles and worries in studying abroad, and the UK education sector has had to work hard to put across the message that it is competitive, and provides value for money on price.
And while other countries save money by educating their graduates abroad (either subsidised by the host country, or by the students who usually fund themselves), the UK pays the full cost of educating 99% of its students at home. Though, at least it then tends to benefit from the skills they have gained, unlike the many developing countries who see their best qualified graduates leave, with the argument still moot as to whether they lose out via brain drain or gain, eventually, from brain circulation and remittances.
Against that background, it's interesting to see new imaginative ideas being floated in Australia, as two leading players from the HE sector, Bruce Chapman and Glenn Withers, start researching the idea of opening up the Higher Education Contributions System (HECS). Could the system be opened up so that international students could fund their studies via HECS? Could it be extended to enable more Australian students to study abroad? Could it be used as a way of compensating developing countries when foreign graduates come to work in Australia?
It would be foolhardy to suggest that the new student funding system in the UK, barely in its infancy, is ready to take on challenges like this. But it would be refreshing to see some creative thinking on issues like these.
And while other countries save money by educating their graduates abroad (either subsidised by the host country, or by the students who usually fund themselves), the UK pays the full cost of educating 99% of its students at home. Though, at least it then tends to benefit from the skills they have gained, unlike the many developing countries who see their best qualified graduates leave, with the argument still moot as to whether they lose out via brain drain or gain, eventually, from brain circulation and remittances.
Against that background, it's interesting to see new imaginative ideas being floated in Australia, as two leading players from the HE sector, Bruce Chapman and Glenn Withers, start researching the idea of opening up the Higher Education Contributions System (HECS). Could the system be opened up so that international students could fund their studies via HECS? Could it be extended to enable more Australian students to study abroad? Could it be used as a way of compensating developing countries when foreign graduates come to work in Australia?
It would be foolhardy to suggest that the new student funding system in the UK, barely in its infancy, is ready to take on challenges like this. But it would be refreshing to see some creative thinking on issues like these.
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