Category: UK

Building bridges (or life after Brexit)

“All of a sudden my plans seemed not so sure anymore, and it was easy to see how current and prospective international students might feel the same”

Melisa Costinea, originally from Transylvania, Romania, is studying PGDip Social Research Methods at University College London, and has previously studied MA Film and Visual Culture – Sociology at University of Aberdeen. She is currently interning for UKCISA, and here she writes about her reaction to the Brexit vote, and how UKCISA is working to support international students.

Everyone will remember what they did on the 23rd of June of 2016 as one would remember, for example, where they were when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. I think the first thing that one should do in the aftermath of Britain’s EU Referendum result is acknowledge the immense impact that this has had on so many people, including an international student such as myself. Along the way, I will also give you a glimpse into how UKCISA is responding to the situation.
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Wonkhe’s #BrHExit: time for a new internationalism in UK HE?

“We are a resilient and a resourceful community”

What does Brexit mean for universities in the UK? This is what stakeholders from across UK HE came together to discuss on 9 August at a day-long conference hosted by Wonkhe in London. Here are a few highlights from the afternoon’s sessions…Read More

Beckie Smith
Beckie Smith is senior reporter at The PIE News and manages The PIE Blog. To get in touch, email beckie[@]thepienews.com.
http://thepienews.com/

Brexonomics: what does the leave vote mean for UK universities?

“There’s no absolute guarantee that EU students starting three or four year programmes in September will have visas to study once Britain is outside the union. That’s a very high level of risk for any EU student”

Ant Bagshaw, assistant director at Wonkhe, the UK’s leading higher education policy analysis website, digs down into the economic impact of Brexit for the UK higher education sector.

Let’s start with the good news. With the value of the pound falling to lows not seen since 1985, the cost of exports – including tuition for foreign students – have reduced dramatically. International students with places to study in the UK have just seen their fees and costs of living reduce by ten per cent. That should be good for demand even if the global PR disaster that is Brexit (we’ve decided to become a more insular nation) diverts some students to other Anglophone markets.
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Ant Bagshaw
Ant is Assistant Director at Wonkhe, following roles as a policy wonk at LSE and the University of Kent. He has also worked for UCL, the NUS and as a reviewer for QAA. As Assistant Director, Ant is responsible for leading a range of activities including training, events and projects. He is particularly interested in leadership, management and strategy in higher education and the positive impact that effective policy advice can have on decision-making.
http://wonkhe.com/

Brexit headlines around the world

Coverage of the UK’s vote to leave the EU in last month’s referendum has been extensive – including our own over at The PIE News of how Brexit might affect international education. Here we take a look at some of the headlines from across the EU and beyond, concerning how the events will affect student mobility and funding in different student markets.

Tuition fee uncertainty

Predictably, coverage within the EU focused largely on concerns over tuition fees for their own countries’ citizens studying in the UK.

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Beckie Smith
Beckie Smith is senior reporter at The PIE News and manages The PIE Blog. To get in touch, email beckie[@]thepienews.com.
http://thepienews.com/

After Brexit, UK HEIs should partner to thrive worldwide

“At the end of last week, from one day to the next, the international landscape changed shape for British universities”

By Simon Butt-Bethlendy of @GlobalHE and Chair of CIPR Education & Skills Group, writes about what the UK’s momentous Brexit decision might mean for UK universities and TNE.

At the end of last week, from one day to the next, the international landscape changed shape for British universities.

At 9am on the morning after the EU Referendum vote I chaired a teleconference with some of my CIPR (Chartered Institute of Public Relations) Education & Skills Group committee. Fellow education communicators registered shock, bafflement and despair.
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Simon Butt-Bethlendy
Simon Butt-Bethlendy is a communications and reputation management consultant for universities who shares news and views about international education on Twitter at @GlobalHE, TNE at @TNE_Hub and research impact via @REFimpact. He is also Chair of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) Education & Skills sectoral group.

The UK’s international education industry on Brexit: the sector speaks

“Simply stunned. our first priority should be to try to reassure the many EU students, academics and friends and work tirelessly to keep them”

In a referendum that saw the highest turnout in a national vote in nearly 25 years, the UK has chosen to leave the EU, with immediate dramatic consequences for the value of the pound sterling and a period of uncertainty for all industries. Here’s what #intled stakeholders had to say.

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Beckie Smith
Beckie Smith is senior reporter at The PIE News and manages The PIE Blog. To get in touch, email beckie[@]thepienews.com.
http://thepienews.com/

How can universities enhance the experience of their international students?

“International students spend most of their time outside the classroom. We can’t leave that experience to chance”

What are the challenges and what are universities doing to make sure they meet the needs of their overseas cohort? These were some of the questions asked at Universities UK’s conference on Enhancing the International Student Experience.

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Beckie Smith
Beckie Smith is senior reporter at The PIE News and manages The PIE Blog. To get in touch, email beckie[@]thepienews.com.
http://thepienews.com/

“Perhaps the scales are tipping”: women in UK HE senior leadership – a personal perspective

“I firmly believe that if I had stayed in India, I would not have achieved what I have managed to here in the UK”

Sonal Minocha, pro-vice chancellor for global engagement at Bournemouth University, writes about her experience of being a woman in a senior leadership position, and how her experience might be different if she’d stayed in India.

This tweet, the data it highlights, and the very persuasively presented blog, together made me think – perhaps consciously for the first time – of how privileged I am to be a product of UK Higher Education. My career, both as a student and a staff member, has thankfully defied the allegations and statistics that this article summarises.

So let me give you my personal context – I am Indian by origin – born and brought up in Delhi, and my first time away from India was as an international student to Newcastle in 2001. I am (or at least was then) very much a migrant, a foreigner, an ethnic minority!
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Sonal Minocha
Sonal Minocha is Pro-Vice Chancellor for Global Engagement at Bournemouth University.

Brexit might not deter students, but it could devastate global faculty and research

“The lifting of the cap has inadvertently made international strategies more real – at least when it comes to student diversity. Would a so-called Brexit end all of that? I don’t think so”

The lifting of the cap on student numbers at UK universities led many institutions to rethink their recruitment and internationalisation policies, with many putting greater efforts into recruiting students from within the EU than before, writes Vincenzo Raimo, pro-vice-chancellor (global engagement) at the University of Reading. Here he looks at how this has led to growth in European student numbers, and asks: how would this change if the UK were to leave the EU?

The focus of the majority of UK university international strategies for the past 20 years or so has been fee income growth. Constrained within a highly regulated system with strict limits on domestic students, the only way universities could grow was to recruit (unregulated) international fee paying students. As well as adding to the diversity of our universities and the quality of student experience, these international students brought income which allowed our universities to grow and develop, appoint new faculty and build new and better facilities.
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Vincenzo Raimo
Vincenzo Raimo is pro-vice-chancellor (global engagement) at the University of Reading in the UK.

Is it time for Gilligan II?

“The target for the UK’s market share proposed by the British Council in 2000 was 25% by 2005 – a fantasy figure which just didn’t see the competition coming”

Universities’ international marketing strategies have no doubt grown smarter in the 15 years since an influential report on the subject was published, writes Vincenzo Raimo, pro-vice-chancellor (global engagement) at the University of Reading – but as competition stiffens and the challenges facing UK HE change, is it time for a new one?

It’s been 15 years since Professor Colin Gilligan published his report for the British Council on international marketing and student recruitment practices within UK universities. The Gilligan Report challenged UK universities to professionalise their marketing activity and to meet the opportunity of growing international student intakes.
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Vincenzo Raimo
Vincenzo Raimo is pro-vice-chancellor (global engagement) at the University of Reading in the UK.