After the declaration of the UK Border Agency to revoke London Metropolitan University’s status to sponsor international students, Universities UK (UUK) President Professor Eric Thomas said that the UK had “failed” almost 3,000 students left stranded as a consequence of the UKBA’s actions.
Professor Thomas asked the UKBA to put itself in the position of the students who would be unceremoniously ejected from their course and made to transfer to another university or simply find an alternative course of action. He asked how UK parents would have reacted if they had been told that their sons and daughters were being told to pack up and leave at a moment’s notice.
Addressing UUK members in a conference held at Keele University in Staffordshire, the organisation’s president said: “Around 3,000 students, of whom the overwhelming majority were bona fide students, found themselves in a foreign country far from home without a course. Everyone involved in this needs to remind themselves that families have paid for these courses and that, for these students, this is one of their major lifetime chances. Let’s all ponder on how we would have reacted if that had happened to our sons and daughters in a foreign country. Why were their needs not given absolute primacy in all these considerations? I would argue that we all have been found wanting in our duties to these students.”
The website for the Government’s Department for Business Innovation and Skills declared that no student with a valid visa would be affected and that a taskforce was being created to help those students who were affected to find a way to continue their studies. London Metropolitan is widely known for its Computer Science courses that have enabled graduates to take up a variety of IT positions in prominent companies. While transferring to other universities on similar courses may be an option for a number of students, others will have no recourse other than to return home and plan to start their studies again at the beginning of the next academic year.
Not only will many students face the academic difficulty of having their studies interrupted, the UKBA’s ruling will also make them incur financial penalties too as they need to suddenly relocate. Professor Thomas said that there would be a form of monetary relief available to students caught in this unfortunate position:
“I can announce today that we are setting up a £2 million fund to help legitimate overseas students at London Met who face extra costs through no fault of their own as a result of transferring to another institution. This will provide certainty to London Met students at what is a stressful and unsettling time.”
For international students with ambitions of completing their studies and starting a vocational career path in business and IT jobs, there is a limited measure of help available. However, the speed and timing of the UKBA decision means that the dream of academic pursuit will have to be put on hold for many prospective students.