A leading British university association is lobbying its government to change the way it counts migration figures by excluding international students enrolled at UK universities and colleges.
Universities UK (UUK) has suggested that by viewing international students separately to other migrant groups, further restrictions on non-EU student visas could be avoided. It could also help the government meet broader net migration targets deemed by many as unachievable.
Edward Acton, vice-chancellor of the University of East Anglia and chair of UUK’s task force on the Tier 4 student-visa system, said last week: “This… would make it far easier for universities and the British Council to get the message across…that legitimate non-European Union students are most welcome”.
The government is committed to reducing net migration in the UK and has set its sights on international students, vowing to reduce their number by 250,000 over the coming three years, in a bid to see “migrant” numbers below 100,000.
However, critics have complained international students (who accounted for around 40% of the 591,000 immigrants in the UK in 2010) are being used as a shortcut to achieving broader targets, and should not be treated as migrants given their temporary residence in the UK.
“The argument we’ve got to make is about net migration itself,” Professor Colin Riordan, chair of UUK’s International and European Policy Committee, said. “Yes, we accept that the government has a commitment in this area; that there is political pressure from constituents, from voters. But there must be a recognition that students are not migrants: they come here, they study and they go home.”
“It is quite difficult to see any other way the government is going to achieve its aim”
Riordan suggested that a new counting system could help the government reduce net migration to the ‘tens of thousands’ by 2015 – targets currently considered unattainable by think tank the Institute for Public Policy Research. It is “quite difficult to see any other way the government is going to achieve its aim,” he said.
However the proposal already looks like a long shot. A Home Office spokesperson told Times Higher Education last week: “We are taking action to control migration and restore public confidence, which will not be achieved by fiddling the statistics.”
Instead the government appears to have its sights on expanding UK transnational education (twinning progammes and branch campuses abroad), launching HE Global earlier this week – a campaign to offer expert advice and other support to those looking to deliver HE abroad.
