The importance of opportunities to study in other countries is “growing ever greater” as the world begins to “fracture once more into different spheres of influence”, the UK minister for skills has said.
Speaking at the opening day of UUKi’s IHEF Conference, Alex Burghart, parliamentary under secretary of state for skills at the UK Department for Education said that the UK and its universities “have a hugely significant role to play”.
“Not just because our country is one of the great global leaders in student recruitment, not just because the appetite of foreign students to study in our country is ever increasing, but most centrally, it’s because of what our universities represent,” he suggested.
UK higher education’s strongest element allowing it to “flourish and survive” is its liberty alongside its academic excellence, he posited.
“We should all be very proud that the UK continues to be at the forefront of international efforts to support the resistance to tyranny in Ukraine,” he continued.
“I want the UK to remain at the very forefront of innovation in TNE provision”
New visa concessions for Ukrainian students will allow them to extend or switch graduate visas without having to leave the UK was one example Burghart gave as his department “doing [its] bit”.
“We have been working very closely with the higher education sector and across government to ensure that Ukrainian students are supported during this uniquely difficult time,” he stated, adding that he was grateful to the sector for “remarkable work” such as “providing crisis counsellors to making student hardship funds available to simply showing friendship and support”.
Earlier this week, the Irish government and the Irish Universities Association said it would “work collectively to ensure Ukrainian people can access higher education” in Ireland. Burghart did not mention any specific plans for the UK to begin accepting Ukrainian students.
Individual institutions in the UK have announced plans to help those fleeing the crisis in Ukraine. The University of Worcester has said it will house refugees at two of its halls of residence. Oxford International Education Group is offering free English language and cultural preparation courses for Ukrainian nationals arriving into the country.
On the other side of the globe, the Independent Higher Education Australia has announced scholarships for affected Ukrainian students.
Burghart also saluted the UK’s new Turing scheme, noting that opportunities for young people to “study in other countries to weigh their views and experiences against those of other cultures as they develop their minds is so extraordinarily important at all times”.
“But as we see the world begin to fracture once more into different spheres of influence, that importance grows ever greater,” he said.
Ambitions outlined in the international education strategy for 2030 are on track, the minister also detailed, adding he was “incredibly proud” of the UK meeting its 600,000 international student ambition in 2020/21, nearly ten years early.
The education export target of £35 billion by 2030 is “well on target”, with exports in 2019 estimated to be £25.2bn, up 8% on 2018, he added.
There is “very great potential” for sustainable growth in transnational education, the Conservative MP added, almost doubling in the 10 years after 2010 from £350 million, to £690m by 2019.
“I want the UK to remain at the very forefront of innovation in TNE provision, especially as we look to what we’ve learnt over the past few years,” he said.
The minister also urged UK universities to collaborate with the Department for International Trade to promote education in future free trade agreements that it is now able to negotiate, sign and ratify following Brexit.
“I want more international students to come to the UK”
“I want more international students to come to the UK, not just because it’s good for our economy, not just because it’s good for those university balance sheets, but because it will enable students from around the world to learn at our remarkable universities, which continue to preserve and protect the great traditions of free thought and enquiry,” Burghart noted.
He also pledged that the government will work with the sector support “every part” of the international student journey.
“This includes optimising the application process for potential students, raising awareness of private finance options and looking at best practise in graduate employability,” he concluded.
