Unions and universities: Internationals are good for the economy

Conservative MP Damian Green questions the value of international students' education. Photo credit: Kathrine Anker

A number of university bodies have come forward to defend international students after Conservative MP Damian Green questioned their value to the UK.

Aaron Porter, NUS President said: “The Government should be proud that students choose to study in this country creating an education industry worth £12.5 billion a year to the British economy.”

Universities worry that Damian Green’s statements will affect their attractiveness to foreign students. Tarequl Khan, Participation and Development Officer at the London Met Students’ Union, said:

“Decisions like this would really hamper the existing acceptance and popularity of London Met, because of the lack of interest of International students towards overall British universities. Therefore, London Met Students’ Union considers this statement as an attack on all students who wish to study in the UK and London Met condemns this decision in the strongest possible terms.”

What are internationals worth?

Addressing the MPs’ questions in Parliament on Monday, Damian Green stated that it is a misunderstanding that Britain is getting “the best of the best” from outside.  He said that many students come to do GSCE-level and vocational courses, and that this might not be the best way to use training resources in the UK.

He told the BBC: “What I want to look at very hard is whether those people who are not doing university degrees are actually doing a degree that are useful for them and useful for us as a country.

“We know that at the bottom end of the market, some of them are straightforward bogus colleges (…). We also know that some of these are bogus students, they’re just coming here to evade immigration laws.”

When asked by the BBC about how many students go to bogus colleges, he said:

“That’s what we don’t know. It’s difficult to know how many people are breaking the law at any one time but that’s clearly where we need to look. We need to tighten the regulation so that every student coming in is benefiting us and is also benefiting themselves.”

Internationals are good for the economy

Before Damian Green’s speech, former London mayor Ken Livingstone told The First Pint:  “We’d be mad to cap or restrict the flow of foreign students. If someone is coming to study, they should be allowed to come. Nine out of ten go back to their country of origin anyway. If they have good links and have a favourable opinion of London, many of them will be in important positions and it will influence the decisions that they make. It will benefit us in the long run.”

Damian Green’s statement comes shortly after the Financial Times published a survey showing that 64 per cent of Britons believe the current level of immigration is making their country “a worse place to live”.

Ken Livingstone thinks the opposite: “I’m all in favour of expanding the number of foreign students coming in. They’re the people that are going to determine the things that will happen in their own countries. If eventually they have to take a decision as to where to site their business operations in Europe, we would want them to think that London is the best place to do it in.”