In support of London Met’s international students
By Nathan Akehurst
LMU students protest the UKBA decision (credit: UK MSN News)
Find a new university in sixty days or get kicked out of the country.
This is the message that the two-thousand strong population of international students at London Metropolitan University woke up to yesterday. It is a result of immigration minister Damian Green’s decision to abruptly revoke the university’s ‘highly trusted sponsor’ status, meaning that it is now banned from sponsoring and recruiting international students.
Green alleges that the university has been irresponsible in its adherence to regulations, replete with some muddled words on how London Met were unsure if students were turning up for classes. It is not particularly worth debating whatever administration issues London Met may have- it is however, worth pointing out that London Met students were the victims of 70% cuts to courses including virtually all humanities subjects.
In April, the University and College Union reported that 91% of staff had no confidence in the institution’s vice chancellor, following plans to axe 200 staff. The university seems to be fast becoming a testbed for the most reactionary and brutal of anti-student, anti-worker and now anti-immigrant policies that are part of the Coalition’s new regime for higher education.
Since when did London Met become a Border Agency outpost? Their task is to educate their students, not to act as a migration control force that sees students as commodities and potential criminals. Yet the real issue is, whether LMU has contravened guidelines or not, it would be shameful to ignore the humanitarian crisis which Green’s brash and ill-considered decision has led to.
This morning’s Metro article on the story featured a picture showing bailiffs dragging student furniture off the premises. These include students that have spent £25,000 on tuition fees, students due to graduate in one term (or even that have finished and yet are unable to submit final dissertations) that may be unable to complete their degrees, and students from impoverished backgrounds.
The UK Border Agency’s decision has, as aforementioned, given them a mere sixty days to find entirely new educational institutions or face summary deportation. In short, two thousand students are being thrown on the scrapheap, denied their qualifications and their fee money stolen from them, simply for being international students. That is what this amounts to, and it is unacceptable.
Despite the fact that the UK’s 300,000 international students pay in more than £2bn a year in tuition fees, Green and the Home Office have been intent on cutting places (including as a horribly disingenuous ‘solution’ to the tuition fee debacle- the one in which ministers were shocked when universities started to charge the amount they were permitted to charge.) This is a higher education issue and one of defending academia, undoubtedly, but it is also part of a wider raft of attacks on immigrant communities. It is a time-honoured strategy- to raise the bugbear of immigrants supposedly draining resources (which falsely assumes social service provision and employment are a zero-sum game and completely ignores the massive impact of austerity) in order to deflect blame for ongoing economic turmoil. It is a strategy that manifests itself in ugly consequences, such as the situation at London Met, and on another side of the coin, the fact that the Islamophobic English Defence League will tomorrow demonstrate in Waltham Forest. Mainstream anti-immigrant discourse opens up political space for extreme-right thugs (only a few days ago, a pig’s head was found pinned to a mosque.) It also allows more mainstream organisations to get away with exploitation- for instance the grim environment of Campsfield House asylum detention centre a few miles north of Oxford, or the camp at the London Olympics where migrant Olympic workers were expected to live in squalid horror at a camp bordering the Olympic Park- and pay rent for it.
The struggles for migrant rights and higher education are encapsulated in the London Metropolitan crisis. If Green is allowed to escape from this decision unscathed, it will almost certainly mean an escalation of attacks on higher education, international students and immigrants in general – the London Met decision itself was only possible because of little-challenged precedents at smaller private-colleges. But already over the last day or so, a strong resistance to the UKBA’s move has emerged. The Education Activist Network has raised the slogan ‘Hands off our classmates’, and are inviting students to take part in their photo campaign. For anyone in London, an emergency demonstration has been called at the Home Office in Marsham Street for September 5th. All those wishing to sign a petition in support of the London Met students can be found here- thousands of signatures have been amassed already.
It is most likely that Green feels he can get away with such a draconian measure here because of classist and anti-academic slurs in the media about LMU being a ‘Mickey Mouse university’ and so on. Yet we should not defend the international students of LMU simply because we could be next (though that is a likely outcome.) We should defend them because the two thousand people with sixty days to uproot themselves and find a new place of education or face deportation need our help as fellow students and fellow people.
Michael Hill
01/09/2012 at 10:51
London Met has shown itself incapable of ensuring that its international student population can speak English or that they turn up to lessons. These are not London Met turning into border control, it is London Met ensuring they actually educate these people. Therefore they have had their license revoked. Oxford won’t be next. Nor will any other university that adheres to the fairly low standards set. Therefore they should not be allowed to take any new students until they can prove they have changed their procedure. However it is cruel and unfair to remove people entering the second and third years who will find it almost impossible to find a new course.
Michele Johnson
01/09/2012 at 11:49
Michael, I am an international student at London Met, I’ve shown up for class and done the work. Then why should I be affected? I’m collateral damage as far as UKBA is concerned. And by the way, I’m from America, English is my first language!
BillY BLaZe
01/09/2012 at 15:34
I think this decision is a weak and pathetic attempt by the government to show they are doing what they promised in the elections removing “illegal” immigrants where we are the illegal immigrants because we choose to study abroad… ohh wait who granted us visa in the first place -_- they just want our money and more of it, any international students thinking of coming to london heres my advice whether your from asia or the west i.e america dont waste your time, they teach from the same books as they teach you back home with so save your money study at home.
michael hill
01/09/2012 at 19:50
As I said in my original comment it is undoubtedly wrong that anyone beyond first year to be removed as they have proved they are capable by passing first year.Therefore collateral damage need not be created. For those who are about to start first year it should be the governments responsibility to find people another course if they meet the language requirement and if they don’t to reimburse the funds. This would be a sensible comproise between maintainig the intergrity of our borders and our education system while not damaging the life chances of foreign students.
michael hill
01/09/2012 at 19:53
As I said in my original comment it is undoubtedly wrong for anyone beyond first year to be removed as they have proved they are capable by passing first year.Therefore collateral damage need not be created. For those who are about to start first year it should be the governments responsibility to find people another course if they meet the language requirement and if they don’t to reimburse the funds. This would be a sensible compromise between maintainig the intergrity of our borders and our education system while not damaging the life chances of foreign students.
Anonymous
02/09/2012 at 23:07
When you choose to study in a foreign country, you unfortunately take the risk of being subject to the law of that country. What the author forgets is that it has obviously been an over-attractive option despite higher fees and whatever else. Further rebalancing of the scales is therefore required.
ishibashi
04/09/2012 at 01:45
I am a mother of London Mets 3 rd year student from Japan. I work so hard and spend my last penny to support my child. Only a year to complete hopefully for him to get a good job and I and my husband who is now still working at the age of 64 to support our child. Please anyone if you have latest information send me to email adress …knk55@hotmail.co.jp…my son is trying to apply for another universities but there is no confirmative answer yet. He is holding proper visa, passed all modules attended his classes regularly during his second year..I am crying now to ask for your support.
Anonymous
04/09/2012 at 21:21
UKBA are completely unfit for purpose.
The CEO has admiited that the computer system they pay a hefty £200 million is prone to problems.
ATOA !!! are behind the IT ??
UKBA do not/cannot cummunicate in real time consequently the complete mess that they are- systemic failure in its purest form.
Not hard to see why with 25% cuts in manpower and a crummy ATOS IT system.
Poor students , all of us need to demonstrate and show solidarity with their plight.
International students are the friends of the UK not enemies like some would like to imply.
Well done VC Gillies , you are showing true leadership and you can count on the support of the good people of this land.
Anonymous
04/09/2012 at 21:30
This is true the UKBA are at the heart of all these problems , they just do not communicate in “real time”.
A friend made a mistake and sent the wrong visa application form to them and it took 2 months for them to get back to to her and tell her that the form was incorrect and the visa aplication unsuccessful….2 months.
You also need a lawyer before you talk to UKA