Can I ask you to sign this petition (http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/PBSReview/ ) as, if not, it could mean my job is on the line and that of my colleagues here at the Leicester ISC! I know it will also affect some of you it terms of some current plans!

Essentially following the announcement made by Gordon Brown concerning the Government’s discussions regarding possible changes to the points based system for tier 4 student visas, ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8356226.stm ) plans are afoot to stop visas for students wishing to enter the UK to undertake courses of study at NQF level 3. This would mean no students studying for GCSE, A level or foundation pre-undergraduate programmes. This has implications for the UK in financial terms is catastrophic! Within this section of the education industry, the following are under threat:

10,000 teaching and administrative jobs at risk.
£5.3bn universities receive from international students annually.
£2.3bn off campus expenditure by international students.
25,000 international students who enter UK universities via A-level or foundation courses based in UK.
£32bn – the education sector is one of Britain’s top export sectors – conservatively estimated to be worth £32bn annually to the economy

The raising of the entry requirements from NQF Level 3 to NQF Level 4 would have a devastating, negative effect on both the university and college business in the UK. In the organisation that I work for, we teach some 1,400 international A-Level and Foundation Course students annually (validated by Liverpool John Moor’s University), and 800 Foundation Course students annually in our International Study Centres (ISC’s). If the entry requirements are raised in the manner suggested, these students would be unable to obtain student visas. This would further damage our international GCSE student business (100 international students annually coming in on child visas), as they would have nowhere to go after passing their GCSE exams, other than home or to one of our global competitors.

Our total tuition turnover in calendar year 2009 will be circa £36 million; our accommodation turnover (residential and host family) some £9 million, and other turnover (books, exam fees, insurance etc. etc.) circa £5 million. Outside our Colleges our students spend some £12 million annually to the wider benefit of the national economy (UKBA requires students to have £600 per month for living costs – up to £800 in London).

If we cannot teach A-level and foundation students, then the supply, annually, of some 1,850 (figure from 2009) students from our Colleges and ISC’s to over 50 UK Universities, including mine, would dry up. 90% of of our students go on to UK Universities. As each student would pay circa £8,200 (average – Universities UK) per annum for three years to their University, this would represent a cumulative total loss of some £46 million income on an annual basis (for a three year course) to UK Universities. Given the squeeze on public funds, a loss of this magnitude across the whole sector is probably one that UK Universities can ill-afford.

Additionally, it is estimated that international university students spend privately some £7k (based on UKBA subsistence requirements) each annually, losing a further £13 million a year to the British economy should such students be unable to take their NQF Level 3 course in the UK and progress to University.

Based on an estimate that ISC partnerships have a market share of this sector around 5%, we can project that the impact of the proposals would result in the loss of at least some 25,000 international students (who would go and study in US or Australia and progress to their universities) and ultimately put some 10,000 high quality jobs in the educational sector at severe risk.

I cannot believe that the Government has been properly informed as to the likely economic consequences of raising the entry requirements in this way and believe that broad consultation is necessary to avoid a hasty decision on this and a number of other areas which could have devastating impacts on us all.

A personal view on this matter is that it is a knee-jerk reaction to concerns about rogue colleges using the system for illegal immigration and trafficking and it is one which will result in the University of Leicester ISC not being able to operate or indeed colleagues at other partner university ISCs! Such an association with discredited establishments is a slur on the good name of legitimate operators such as the University of Leicester and Study Group who operate this venture for and on behalf of the university!

If you can pass this onto friends family and colleagues who it may affect or who might wish to support this venture, I would be very pleased.

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/PBSReview/

Many thanks

Gwynne

Dr. David Gwynne Harries. MA MIITT

Head – University of Leicester

International Study Centre

Prospect House

2nd Floor

94, Regent Road

Leicester

LE1 7DA

Tel: 0116 229 7800

Fax: 0116 229 7801

email 1: dgh7@le.ac.uk

email 2: gharries@studygroup.com

http://www.le.ac.uk/isc