The UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has released a set of proposals to provide a fast-track route for institutions to gain degree-awarding powers and drive up teaching standards for the whole of the UK's higher education sector.
A new drive has been launched by the UK government, which is partnering with a graduate website service, to investigate fake universities. Under new measures, bogus institutions issuing dodgy degrees can be investigated and the perpetrators can be prosecuted.
In an unexpected ministerial statement, the UK's Universities and Science minister Greg Clark says he will set up a 'Rapid Response Team' to investigate fraud allegations among alternative providers and will require APs to register any student before making a claim for tuition fee support.
Transnational education (TNE) was worth £469m to UK universities in 2012-13, according to a report from BIS. Meanwhile, new research from HEFCE shows TNE students are helping to make up England's shortfall in incoming international student numbers.
The UK’s Business Secretary Vince Cable has announced nearly 400 new scholarships for Indian university students to study in the UK during a week-long trade trip to India. He also mentioned the new Education UK alumni awards.
The UK's NUS has called for more financial security for international students hit by hardship following new research released earlier this month that revealed over two-thirds of institutions did not have a separate fund or procedure for students affected by external crises. The report calls for more coordinated institution-wide responses and for a national hardship fund scheme to be piloted.
The UK government says it wants to see 15-20% growth in overseas enrolments at its universities, as part of a major new industrial strategy to ensure international education becomes one of Britain's "great growth industries". Released today, the strategy also calls for greater outbound mobility; however some suggest its recruitment goals clash with restrictive immigration policies.
A leaked memo reveals UK PM David Cameron is keen to develop an industrial strategy around education exports, which could include universities actively helping international graduates to find a job; swifter routes to citizenship; more foreign universities in the UK and extending access to the secondary school system to internationals.
