Evidence to HEC – a critique

From our Chief Executive

05 February 2018

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Over the last month or so, in addition to all the submitting to the Migration Advisory Committee, another body, the Higher Education Commission has been undertaking an Inquiry also relating to international students but this time not specifically (or originally) in terms of immigration policy but education exports.

I am due to give evidence later this month but for the second evidence session we suggested that our good friend Claire O’Leary (Tier 4 compliance lead at Warwick, co-chair of the ICN, UKCISA Board member and close partner for a number of ‘Integration Summits’ arranged in past years) should be invited (along with I-Graduate, NUS, the PVC from Exeter and Study Group).

Her critique – informed by numbers of colleagues who put forward suggestions – is so clear and comprehensive, I thought it was worth featuring in full so here it is:

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1. Has Brexit and recent immigration reforms led to any changes in how welcoming the UK feels to international students?

As colleagues from I-Graduate have demonstrated, overall international student satisfaction with UK Higher Education is very high. However, something is undermining the UK’s appeal. Although applications from international students may be up, total enrolments have not risen by anywhere near the same proportion and new entrants from outside the EU have actually dropped slightly. Based on UUK figures, between 2011 and 2017, Tier 4 visa applications increased 17%, but non-EU new entrant numbers were only 3% higher in 2017, compared to 2011. When we compare this enrolment trajectory to that of competitor countries, there is a real risk that we are losing global market share to countries such as the US, Australia and China.

Recent immigration policy has had a direct impact on actual numbers of students coming to the UK, particularly from certain markets. The most notable impact of migration policy change was the 2012 decision to remove the Post Study Work route, which enabled graduates to remain in the UK for up to 2 years to seek and take up work. Despite a lack of robust data, it was decided that the scheme was open to abuse and posed too great a threat to the local labour force. That the scheme was closed in April 2012, to students who were part-way through degree programmes and, in many cases, had taken out educational loans in their home countries on the basis that they could pay these off by working in the UK after graduation, created considerable hardship for affected individuals and a significant loss in confidence in the UK generally and in its promise to international students. Markets such as India, Pakistan and Nigeria were very badly affected by this change and some universities lost these markets entirely, with severe financial consequences for them. At the same time, competitor countries such as Australia and Canada made their Post Study Work proposition far more generous and attractive.

Following the closure of PSW, student migration policy continued to be turbulent, with the revocation of London Met’s Tier 4 licence and the damaging impact that this had on students directly affected, and the reputation of the UK as a safe, trusted and stable place to study. Similarly, with the scandal around TOEIC English language test abuses, we then saw a disproportionate number of students being required to quit their studies and leave the UK and a dramatic tightening of the rules regarding the assessment of English language competence, with FE providers not trusted to make their own assessments of language and with only two providers authorised to undertake the secure language tests in a much-reduced network of test centres.

When we look at the way global media reports changes to immigration policy affecting students including the then Home Secretary’s comments about the deliberate creation of a ‘hostile environment for migrants’, from which Tier 4 students are not excluded, it is clear that is affecting the perception of the UK as a study destination that is welcoming towards international students. One only has to look at the headlines in the Hindustan Times to see some of the damage these policies are doing to the UK’s reputation.
Damage is also done by the policies that are floated and then abandoned, such as the plan to require international students to leave the UK immediately after graduation. Warwick received a letter from members of the House of Lords seeking our support to withhold degree certificates until proof had been provided that students had exited the UK borders. Another abandoned, but globally reported policy idea, was that of requiring students to pay a bond to give the UK greater assurance that they would leave the UK on completion of their course. The suspicion and mistrust in international students that such abandoned policies are based on is reported very negatively and loudly in global media and such reports cannot but help to contribute to perceptions of the UK as no longer welcoming.

Brexit has also had a negative impact on the international student experience. Universities and Students’ Unions around the country are reporting a rise in the instances of hate crime, including racial abuse and assault, since the June 2016 Brexit decision, leading some non-UK students to be fearful for their safety and, we are even hearing that non-EEA students are coming to the UK expecting to be subjected to racial abuse, based on the advice of their senior students. Being the subject of racial abuse should never be the norm for our international students.
The Erasmus+ scheme, which has been so popular and successful with students since its inception 30 years ago, now faces an uncertain future and students who have taken heed of universities’ encouragement to study and work abroad and to learn languages during their degree programmes, are now wondering how hard it will be to turn their international experiences into employment both in the UK and overseas. The uncertainty over fees and student support for EU full-degree students is also unhelpful in terms of student recruitment and, should our EU numbers fall, the diversity of our student community is further undermined.

Recent migration policy offers a more positive approach: removing some of the most arbitrary consequences of the rule on ‘academic progression’, was really good news. The Tier 4 pilot which offers a streamlined visa application process for Master’s students and a longer period of wrap up time in the UK after the course has also been warmly welcomed and we would ask that this be rolled out to all Tier 4 sponsors across all study levels.

To mend the damage from previous migration policy and Brexit and to capitalise on our still strong global position and on the high student satisfaction ratings our international students give us, and given the recent ONS reports showing that at least 97% of international students leave the UK at the end of their studies, now is the time to:

remove students from the net migration targets,
reintroduce a generous and competitive Post Study Work offer
relax the Tier 4 compliance burden on institutions including the snagging bits of policy and practice which needlessly undermine students’ faith in and affection for the UK.

2. How does Home Office processing and continuing student visa surveillance affect student demand, the supply of places, and the quality of the experience?

The comprehensive set of obligations that sponsoring Tier 4 sponsors are required to sign up in order to receive and maintain their licence are overwhelming and it is frankly impossible for institutions to achieve 100% compliance at all times, despite universities investing millions on pounds on staff resources and new systems. There have been 37 iterations of the Sponsor Guidance since Tier 4 was launched and the frequency and scale of some of the changes have been a challenge for institutions to manage whilst still trying to deliver an outstanding international student experience, keeping the focus on delivering world class education.

That said, there are some aspects of sponsorship which align naturally with the core aims of any university. We all want students who have the academic and language abilities to succeed on our programmes – no one wants to recruit students who will struggle and fail – so UKVI rules on who we assign sponsorship to makes sense to universities generally. Where Tier 4 sponsors have concern is in relation to the UKVI’s exercising of its power to refuse visas on grounds of subjective credibility, and there have been examples in the sector of random and arbitrary refusal decisions based on ‘credibility’, which are extremely difficult to challenge and overturn. Some universities, conscious about maintaining their visa refusals within the required 10% threshold, have seen no option but to deliberately avoid so called ‘high risk’ markets due to the higher rate of visa refusals; a move which affects the diversity of the international student cohort to the detriment of the wider UK student learning community and undermines the advance of global higher education quality generally. For smaller institutions, the burden and risks of Tier 4 compliance outweigh the rewards, so some have abandoned Tier 4 sponsorship altogether.

Sometimes, it is the small things that really leave a sour taste in the mouth and create the opposite of a sense of welcome. Here are four examples where Home Office policy is having a negative impact on the student experience:

In 2015, based on no scientific evidence about NHS usage by international students, the Immigration Health Surcharge was introduced – it costs £150 per year for each year of the course plus a further six months. One of the things that feels most wrong about this change is the fact that should a student make a silly mistake and end up getting their initial visa application refused, there is no automatic process for the reimbursement of their IHS fee. It is down to the tenacity of the student and their adviser to recoup the fee. This makes the financial burden of making a second visa application even more difficult as the IHS must be paid upfront again along with the second visa application fee. This just isn’t particularly fair.

Due to a challenging policy known as ‘Academic Progression’, which seeks to prevent serial students clocking up time in the UK for the main purpose of qualifying for indefinite leave to remain, and which exists in addition to the Study Limit policy, students who choose to participate in their university’s study abroad scheme or an industrial placement, are being double charged for IHS. Academic Progression requires such students to apply for fresh leave before the “change of course” is reported to the UKVI and there are rules about how quickly the change must be reported. So your average undergraduate would pay upfront 3 years and six months’ IHS when they first apply overseas, and then, in their second year, to be allowed to change on to a study abroad route for example, they are charged the HIS fee again for their year 3 which they’ve already paid, as well as for their extra study abroad year. Again, not an intended consequence of the policy, but an unfair reality, which does not communicate a sense of welcome or fair play.

When processing thousands of visa and leave applications, inevitably, the Home Office will make mistakes, that’s entirely normal. What’s difficult to explain to students is that regardless of the inconvenience or delay the Home Office error causes them, it is the student that must pay a fee to have the Home Office reviewed and hopefully corrected. If the student doesn’t spot the error within 14 days, they forfeit their right to have the error reviewed. Students are not immigration experts – they are coming to the UK to engage in our excellent higher education and we should not require them to become masters in immigration policy.

Very often, things happen in students’ lives which mean they need to take a break in their studies and return home. Universities are required to notify the Home Office and the Home Office is supposed to curtail the students’ leave accordingly, which stops the clock on the student’s study limit. However, the Home Office is not routinely curtailing leave promptly, thus the clock keeps tickets and students are wasting valuable time from their study limit, thus preventing them from be allowed to enrol on a Master’s course after a Bachelor’s course, or to do a second complementary Master’s. This is unfair and I fear it bears little relation to concerns about immigration abuse, but is rather a flawed process or lack of Home Office resource.

At a recent national meeting of the Immigration Compliance Network that I co-chair, a representative from the UKVI said that over the last year when auditing Tier 4 sponsors, it was now the norm for them to see very high standards of compliance. Given these high standards and the will from Tier 4 sponsors to maintain the fundamental premises of sponsorship, it makes sense now to lighten some of the compliance burden on institutions and to acknowledge our high standards with greater trust. The Tier 4 pilot now involving 27 universities and students applying for one-year Master’s programmes is really welcome, but is not now time to roll this out to all Tier 4 sponsors across all study levels?

3. Which country’s rules and processes are most attractive to international students?

Universities UK have prepared a really useful comparison table which looks at key aspects of the international student journey and compares UK policy and practice to that of Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the USA. I will refer to this data and will pick out 4 key points.

Where the UK, Australia and New Zealand have rules around ‘Academic Progression’ to prevent serial students, Canada and the USA have no such rules. On having a limit on the maximum length of study, the UK caps this at 5 years for undergraduate students, yet none of our competitors, except New Zealand, have such a policy.

In relation to student dependents and their rights to come and work, the UK restricts this to the spouses of those studying on postgraduate courses of more than 12 months and they can undertake unrestricted work on their dependant visa. Canada and Australia allow the dependants of students at all study levels to come with Canada allowing unrestricted work and Australia and New Zealand allowing unrestricted work rights to the dependents of PGT and PGR students only. Only the US prohibits work rights to student dependents.

For student work rights, the UK offers 20 hours per week and unlimited hours for students who have university vacation periods (mostly undergraduate students). In Australia, the offer is 40 hours per week when the course is in session, and unlimited hours when not and voluntary work to the benefit of the community is not including in the 40 hours. Australia and New Zealand distinguish between the work rights for undergraduates and postgraduate research students, setting no limits on the number of hours the latter group may work.

The requirement to register with the police – despite the huge investment by universities to meet their sponsor obligations which include checking and capturing the passport and visa of all their full-time students subject to immigration control, the UK nonetheless requires international students (with some nationalities being exempted) to queue up and pay to register separately with the police. The requirement is to register within seven days of arrival into the UK and yet in practice, there is a 3-4 month waiting period, certainly for the West Midlands police force, before they can see a student a process their registration. This seems like an unqualified waste of time and resource. None of the competitor countries impose this requirement, with the exception of New Zealand, and only for students on courses lasting longer than 24 months.

In terms a Post Study Work (PSW) offer, the UK closed this scheme down in 2012. If international graduates wish to remain in the UK for work purposes after graduation, they must now obtain a graduate job offer with a minimum salary of £20,800 or the going rate for the job, whichever is higher and in many professions it is considerably higher – they can then apply for permission to remain under Tier 2 and receive a grant of leave of up to 3 years initially. Other options include the Doctorate Extension Scheme, which enables certain PG research students to remain in the UK without a job offer for a maximum of 12 months; and the Tier 1 Graduate Entrepreneur students, which enables up to 40 students per year to remain in the UK for 1-2 years where they have a credible business idea they wish to develop in the UK.

This offer compares poorly to the PSW proposition in Canada, where there is a Post-Graduation Work Permit programme, with no minimum salary, no requirement to have a job offer, enabling students on degree courses longer than 2 years, permission to stay for up to 3 years, with encouragement to apply for permanent residence. Australia offers a 2-4 year Temporary Graduate Visa, with no minimum salary and no job offer requirement. There are also additional specific schemes for graduate engineers. The USA offers a 12 month scheme for graduates (24 months for certain STEM programmes), which does not require a minimum salary or job offer, but where the student is not permitted to be unemployed for longer than 90 days.

4. What are the issues and problems in relation to integration on campuses?

As the 2015 HEPI report states, UK students understand the education and employability benefits of studying along international students and universities across the UK proudly market ourselves as global institutions with richly diverse, global student communities. However, as evidence from the International Student Barometer shows, international students routinely report dissatisfaction with their ability to make friends outside their home national groups and there is evidence that some international students’ language skills can even diminish during their studies due to lack of interaction outside home national groups. Furthermore, as research conducted by Warwick academics on 1500 students from 3 different institutions shows, there's a lot of variation among students regarding the importance they attach to social and academic integration, and to their experiences of it. Clearly, the reality of interacting across cultures is harder in practice than in theory and there is a human tendency towards sticking to what and who we know for the avoidance of risk. And yet, it’s the risk that reaps the rewards in terms of developing students’ intercultural competencies and other key skills rated highly by global graduate employers. Students of all cultural backgrounds needs support and structured interventions from institutions if they are to move outside cultural comfort zones and choose to interact regularly and meaningfully with students from different cultures. Many students value it highly but feel they are not experiencing it. Others have little awareness of the benefits that social and academic integration can bring and do not regard it as a priority. Integration needs active institutional support, with a range of strategies and initiatives, so that the variability in students' attitudes and experiences can be addressed.
Partly because success in HE internationalisation is currently measured in terms of structural indicators such as numbers of enrolled international students, numbers of international academic staff, numbers of students going on outbound mobility, rather than on the quality of the learning that such interactions bring to the individual and the HE community, institutions aren’t clear what these interventions should be, how integration should be measured or intercultural appetite and sensitivity increased, and so this area does not develop.
Without the structured support from institutions and the will and engagement from students, both domestic and international, student communities will not become integrated; the rich opportunities for an internationalised learning experience will not be realised. International education could and should be about bringing students together and increasing understanding and accountability for global social challenges and increasing intercultural sensitivity for enhanced relationships as well as global employability. Integration is core to achieving these higher goals of an internationalised university and properly harnessing the invaluable cultural and learning capital that our international students bring, is a major part of this.

I doubt I will be able to add much to this – so well said Claire!

And from her comments and those from others, if this Commission was not originally about student immigration policy, I think it may well be now!

Dominic

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Evidence to HEC – a critique

1. Has Brexit and recent immigration reforms led to any changes in how welcoming the UK feels to international students?

2. How does Home Office processing and continuing student visa surveillance affect student demand, the supply of places, and the quality of the experience?

3. Which country’s rules and processes are most attractive to international students?

4. What are the issues and problems in relation to integration on campuses?

About UKCISA

Useful links

Evidence to HEC – a critique

1. Has Brexit and recent immigration reforms led to any changes in how welcoming the UK feels to international students?

2. How does Home Office processing and continuing student visa surveillance affect student demand, the supply of places, and the quality of the experience?

3. Which country’s rules and processes are most attractive to international students?

4. What are the issues and problems in relation to integration on campuses?

Graduate immigration route, fees regulations and Agent research

Advocating for change: supporting the international student experience

About UKCISA

Useful links