As former Manchester mayor Andy Burnham ascends to No. 10 today following Keir Starmer’s resignation last month, international education heavyweights have set out a list of priorities for his premiership.
From overturning the Labour government’s policy to charge VAT on private school fees – a policy that has been furiously fought by the UK’s K-12 sector, culminating in a thwarted legal challenge – to protecting the Graduate Route, stakeholders have given pointers on what they would like to see from the new Prime Minister.
Akshay Chaturvedi, founder and CEO of Leverage Edu, posted on LinkedIn urging Burnham to “treat international education as the export industry it is” – one worth some £40 billion per year.
And he stressed the need to “protect the Graduate Route and say so loudly”, warning that each review of the post-graduate work pathway risked thousands of international students choosing a different study destination.
Chaturvedi also encouraged Burnham to “go deeper with India than any PM before you” – India is currently the biggest sending market in UK international education, with almost 100,000 visas issued to Indian applicants in the year ending June 2025.
“The country that welcomes them best wins the next fifty years of goodwill, trade and talent. Make that country Britain,” said Chaturvedi.
Similarly, UKGuardianship and OxBridge Consulting founder Susan Fang said that the new PM must keep close ties with East Asia.
“In East Asia, affection for Britain runs deeper than any trade deal,” she said. “Families plan a British education on a forty-year clock, sometimes across three generations. That trust took a century to build and takes one careless Budget to burn.”
Families plan a British education on a forty-year clock, sometimes across three generations. That trust took a century to build and takes one careless Budget to burn
Susan Fang, UKGuardianship and OxBridge Consulting
Fang posted a suggestion that Burnham revisits VAT on school fees, pointing out that over 100 independent schools had closed since the policy was brought in.
“If full reversal is beyond your politics, build a tiered system that spares the small. Eton College will survive anything. The 120-pupil village prep, often the largest employer in its town, will not,” she said.
She noted that international recruitment for K-12 schools has been down for several years, suggesting that “VAT was not the illness, it was the last straw on a camel already on its knees”.
Meanwhile, Manchester Metropolitan University vice-chancellor and Universities UK president Malcolm Press stressed that “universities matter”.
He said: “At a time when the country faces significant economic and social challenges, universities are determined to be part of the solution. Through work on graduate employability, innovation and spin-outs, civic partnerships, and working collaboratively across the education ecosystem, our sector is committed to serving the needs of the nation.”
But Press said that universities could only be at their best amid a “predictable funding environment”.
“We welcome challenge and accountability. But we also need government to recognise and champion one of the UK’s great assets,” he said.
Nathalie Jacoby-Danesh, partner in the higher education team at the law firm Browne Jacobson, said that Burnham’s government must start treating international students better.
“A good starting point for supporting universities would be to stop treating international students as a migration statistic to be managed down, but recognising they are people who choose to invest in our universities, cities, towns and businesses,” she said – calling for the international student fee levy to be scrapped and for the Graduate Route to stay in place.
“This would provide an immediate, concrete signal that this government is serious about supporting universities as part of its wider growth agenda,” she said.
