International education must not be caught in the UK’s electoral crossfire

Scholarship providers play a long-standing role in the international education ecosystem, supporting access for gifted students of limited financial means and keeping universities focused on the international student experience.

However, as made clear at the recent BMI/THE Global Scholarship Forum in London, those providers want assurance about the welcome their students will receive in the UK amid troubling political mood music around immigration.

The array of major government, charitable, corporate and multinational scholarship bodies that attended the event, alongside leading higher education institutions, made it clear that their confidence has been dented over the past 12 months by the growing debate about students who want to bring their dependants to the UK.

The pandemic has accelerated a major shift in the countries that send students, with growth from China slowing and being replaced by demand from South Asia and Africa. These new students are typically older, postgraduate, concerned about affordability, focused on employability and keen to take advantage of the post-study work offers finally reinstated in 2019. They are also more likely to bring their families to the UK while they are studying.

The best scholarship bodies think holistically about their students’ needs, making provision not only for tuition fees but also for accommodation, food, technology, travel and insurance. They are also a potential safety net when things go wrong that threaten a student’s ability to stay on track – including family issues. So the students they support are less likely to be derailed by such shocks.

But the UK sector has been challenged in meeting the needs of these new students and their dependants at a time of accommodation shortages and cost-of-living crises in both home and destination countries. Such problems hit families harder than individuals – especially if they are trying to stay in particular areas near the universities where their children are enrolled in schools.

On top of that is mounting political hostility to student immigration. Last October, home secretary Suella Braverman said students’ family members were “piggybacking” on student visas and were “not necessarily working or they’re working in low-skilled jobs, and they’re not contributing to growing our economy”. And although, encouragingly, two thirds of members of the public recently questioned for a Universities UK-commissioned poll said they were happy for the UK to host the current number of international students or even more, we anticipate new restrictions on families accompanying parents studying in the UK.

Pre-pandemic, the UK fretted about the concentration of students from China. Now we fret about South Asia and Africa. But by 2060 almost 80 per cent of the world’s population will live in Africa or Asia. UK universities need to convince our fellow citizens of this and embrace opportunities to add to campus diversity by recruiting from these regions of more than 60 nations.

Already, more than 70 per cent of the demand for higher education comes from Africa and Asia, yet three quarters of the world’s top-1,000 universities are in Europe, North America and Oceania. The mismatch will fuel international higher education for years to come, but students and scholarship providers will focus their attentions on the most welcoming countries. The UK’s embrace of diversity is exemplified by a Muslim mayor of London, a Muslim first minister in Scotland and a Hindu prime minister – not to mention a home secretary whose parents were both of Indian descent. But the government’s pronouncements do not always bear this out.

The irony is that, rhetoric aside, current policy positions are positive. In fact, the reintroduction of post-study work opportunities in 2019 has led the UK to reclaim second place, after the US, for attracting international students. That has led to concerns from a different political direction about brain drain from the Global South.

If this leads the sector to think harder about international collaborations and transnational education, it is a good thing. However, the evidential basis for a brain drain remains elusive. Most students return to their home countries: 94 per cent did so when the previous post-study work arrangements were in place, before they were abolished in 2012. It is likely that when we have the evidence from the new graduate route visas, we will see more international students remaining in the UK and transferring to work visas. But it will still be a minority.

Moreover, scholarship bodies’ longitudinal tracking of their students’ subsequent careers underlines that graduates often move back and forth between home and host countries, while others work in multiple destinations: a fact missed by surveys carried out at a single point in time. But scholarship students themselves typically have a desire to give back to their home countries, in recognition of the educational opportunities with which it has provided them.

Hence, scholarship bodies have much to offer the UK and remain highly sought-after partners for our universities. But we have no automatic right to their funding. As attested to by progression rates, UK higher education is high quality, but our scholarship body partners are encouraging us to do better on safety, affordability, work experience and welcome.

All of these are themes that the UK is advancing through its International Education Strategy, championed by Sir Steve Smith. Regarding the latter issue, however, we need to do more.

When the Global Scholarship Forum gathers in 2024, the UK will be in a general election year. There is a risk that, if immigration becomes a big campaigning issue, international education could bear the cost. Between now and then, we need to work harder to build a broader public consensus on the diversity, excellence and ambition overseas scholars bring to our campuses and our nation.

Wendy Alexander is vice-principal international at the University of Dundee and a Scottish government higher education trade envoy.