Additional reporting by Nicholas Cuthbert
- Immigration white paper brings compliance conversations to the fore as Tony Blair’s Home Secretary questions rapid rise in international students at mid-ranking institutions.
- Sector hits back at comments, pointing out that consequences of compliance breaches not worth it for institutions.
- Concerns also raised about asylum claims, as reports suggest some students are using route to extend stay in UK.
Jack Straw, who served as Home Secretary between 1997 and 2001, pointed to parts of the recently released immigration white paper that showed universities ranked between 600 and 1,200 by the Times Higher Education had “expanded dramatically” in terms of their international intake.
“There has to be a question there about the fact that some universities in that category have been chasing students and not paying attention to rigorous controls,” he told delegates at Duolingo English Test’s inaugural DETcon London yesterday. “And if you do that, the rest of the sector will pay the price.”
“You may be complaining about that, but that’s just where it is,” he added.
He highlighted the raft of stricter controls on international students highlighted in the white paper – which include more stringent English language requirements and higher thresholds for the Basic Compliance Assessment (BCA) – saying that he was “in no doubt” these would come into force in time.
While the effect of these tighter regulations could “squeeze… some universities”, some of their business models up until this point had not been sustainable, he said. Straw went so far as to tell The PIE News that it was inevitable some universities would go bust.
Straw’s comments drew ire from delegates at the conference – some of whom dismissed the claims as “rubbish”, while others were at pains to point out the high compliance rate in the sector.
You may be complaining about that, but that’s just where it is
Jack Straw, former Home Secretary
Speaking in a panel discussion later on at the event, deputy vice-chancellor at the University of Portsmouth, Chris Chang, said the notion that only certain institutons should be able to recruit international students was “nonsense”.
“Half of the international staff [at this conference] would not be here today. I wouldn’t be here today because I’m went to study at a post-92 institution,” he said. “At the end of the day, I think that’s rubbish. I will be brave enough to say that.”
He stressed that his university doesn’t “take sides”, instead offering choice and options for international students. And, he added, it is in institutions’ best interests to pay heed to immigration controls.
“We need to protect our sponsorship license – and that’s right, we need to take immigration policy seriously, that’s our duty. But we still offer choice and different people have different drivers,” he said.
Anne Marie Graham, UKCISA chief executive, defended the UK’s higher education sector as being “extremely compliant”.
“That’s not to say it is 100% compliant – there will be issue that arise – but what we don’t hear in that public narrative is how the UKVI and institutions work collaboratively to identify trends and work to eradicate problems,” she told The PIE.
She continued: “It’s in no sponsors’ interest to be noncompliant, they would lose their licence if they were to do so.”
Meanwhile, HEPI director Nick Hillman took aim at the Home Office’s attitude towards international education in the UK – shown in its emphasis upon compliance at universities in the immigration white paper. Speaking to The PIE, he paid particular mind to the squeezed BCA thresholds.
“I think that it was quite a clever move of the government to put that crack down on compliance in the white paper because it is the sort of thing [mainstream] journalists overlook, but it is critically important and a good number of universities are very close to those new, reduced thresholds and they are going to have to look very carefully at their numbers,” he said.
And he said the sector always faced an “existential crisis” in the rare cases when institutions were banned from recruiting international students.
“There are a lot of different factors to do with compliance, some of which are in the control of the university, and some are to do with geopolitical factors. You suddenly find you’ve got far more applicants from one part of the world that you have traditionally recruited from,” he said. “These numbers can go up and down by more than people realise year to year and I think the Home Office are trying to pull a fast one in making it look much simpler than it feels to people on the ground.”
Speaking at DETcon London, Straw also took a hard line on reports of international students applying for asylum – which also formed a sizeable part of the immigration white paper as the government took swipes at those it claims are doing so disingenuously as a way to extend their time in the UK.
The white paper drew attention to an increasing number of asylum clams for students coming to the end of their course “even though nothing substantive has changed in their home country while they have been in the UK”. It pointed to figures showing that around 30% of asylum claims in the UK come from visa holders, with 47% of this number coming from students.
While Straw pointed out that some of these claims would be genuine, he hit out at the practice as a whole, calling it “a racket… we should have no truck with”.
“Everybody knows it’s a racket. And there are a lot of people, particularly immigration advisors and lawyers, who are making money out of this racket,” he stressed. “We should deal with it.”
