higher education

After the student protest in London a few weeks ago, more student unrest is expected over the coming fortnight. Campus occupations in both Birmingham and Cambridge have caused disruptions in the last few days, and such action is expected to spread throughout the country in the lead up to the trade union strikes next week.

One occupation in Cambridge has already caused higher education minister David Willetts to abandon a speech after he was heckled by an audience of more than a hundred. On Tuesday night, one activist stood up during the minister's speech and read a prepared statement. Other demonstrators repeated the statement sentence by sentence- a common technique used by Occupy activists. The statement read:

"You can threaten to shoot us with rubber bullets; you can arrest us; you can imprison us; you can criminalise our dissent; you can blight a hundred thousand lives ... but you cannot break us because we are more resolute, more numerous, and more determined than you ... Go home, David."

With international students paying upwards of £10,000 for each year of study in the UK, it takes a top class experience to make them feel they have got value for money. New British students can struggle with arranging accommodation, finding a part-time job, making friends and managing their studies, but for international students all this can be ten times harder.

Arriving alone in a new country that speaks a foreign language can be one of the most difficult things to do, and universities have a duty to make it as easy as possible for new students. However, do they currently help enough? For every international student who finds arriving and settling in a painless process, there is a story of struggle. Even if universities are currently helping every step of the way, there is always room for improvement.

Equally, now, more than ever, not only is it the universities' duty, but it is actually essential to their survival that they keep their international students happy. The financial benefit of students from around the world (not to mention the welcome cultural diversity they bring) is now indispensible to the Higher Education sector in the UK.

International students are an important source of income to the United Kingdom, as proven by the exceedingly high fees, which can range from £10,000 to £13,000 in London. It does not end with high tuition fees, but also with tax on money spent on renting a house, paying for the tube or merely buying some university books. VAT! VAT!

However, recently we have seen that the British government wishes to make it more difficult for international students to enter the country, through either categorizing them as high risk nationalities, or introducing a cap on the number of international student visas issued. Similarly, there is talk of the post-study work visa ceasing to exist meaning graduates must leave to go back home once they have completed their degree. But wait, there is another option to returning home.

Yes we have it. If you are able to find a job related to your field of study where you are earning £20,000 a year then... STAY! The UK seems to have a love-hate relationship with international students.

Thousands of students turned out on the streets of London yesterday to protest against the increase to tuition fees. We went along to see what the atmosphere was like and to talk to a few of the protestors. Below will give you a feel of the rally: 

Overall, the protest was very peaceful, due at least in part to the huge police presence. There were some 4,000 police officers lining the route of the march, though only 24 arrests were made, mainly for minor offences. The number of protestors that turned up varies depending on who you believe, with the police estimating there were about 2,000, whilst the organisers claim that as many as 15,000 attended.  

More than 450 colleges in the UK have been banned from teaching foreign students, as part of new visa restrictions introduced by the government. As part of a plan to reduce immigration to the UK, there has been a crack down on bogus colleges set up simply as a way to for fake students to get visas.

For years there have been hundreds of colleges offering internationals an easy way into the UK through fake courses that allowed them to claim student visas. However, earlier this year the government announced that this abuse of the immigration system was to be put under scrutiny.

Licences Revoked

Of the 450 colleges affected so far, almost 400 of them failed to register with the new inspection system and so lost the privilege of recruiting international students. The rest either had their licences revoked or suspended due to a variety of misdemeanours. Common problems were colleges that were unable to show records of student attendance, or that they had checked the students' qualifications. However, one college could not even provide a list of enrolled students or a timetable of classes.