Bogus colleges: Closing the loophole

The recent, much-publicised arrests in connection with an alleged terrorist plot in Manchester have drawn attention to what is widely seen as the "weak link" in Britain's immigration system, namely the apparent ease with which students from outside the European Economic Area (EEA) can obtain visas to study in the UK.

The media have focused their attention on so-called "bogus colleges". But there are in fact two interrelated but essentially separate issues to consider: bogus colleges and bogus students. Is the government doing enough to tackle both these problems? I first became aware of the problem of bogus colleges when, as pro vice-chancellor at Middlesex University in the 1990s, I had to deal with a number of instances involving third-world students who had been induced to part with large sums of money in order to attend self-styled "colleges" and "academies" in the London area. Sometimes these institutions existed only on paper. In other cases they boasted "campuses" (of sorts, often a couple of rooms located above a betting shop or laundrette) and claimed to award a variety of qualifications which, so they said, could be transferred to a bona fide UK university.

Well, they couldn’t. Often these institutions lacked any accreditation. Where they claimed accreditation, the accrediting body was (in my professional judgment) as bogus as the institution itself. So I had to tell students that the “diplomas” they had received from these outfits were worthless. Real tears were shed. But what made me angrier still was the discovery that the then Department for Education & Skills (now the Department for Innovation, Universities & Skills) actually maintained a list of bogus colleges, but kept it hidden from public view. In due course the DfES was induced, under Home Office pressure, to publish a list of “approved” education and training providers. But getting onto the list was far too easy.

There were no checks on the quality of education provided. The process was entirely paper-based. In evidence to the parliamentary Home Affairs Select Committee in 2006 I pointed this out by drawing attention to a case where a London-based college boasted that it was on the DfES’s approved list (which was true), but which I knew was also, simultaneously, on the secret list of "dodgy" institutions. The government’s right hand did not know what its left hand was doing.

The arrangements that came into force last month are designed to deal with the issue of bogus colleges in a very different way. No educational institution, be it a public university or a private college, can now recruit non-EEA students without a licence from the UK Border Agency (UKBA). How is such a licence obtained? Private institutions must be accredited by one of a small number of specialist accrediting bodies. But bona fide degree-granting bodies can escape the need for such accreditation if they are in membership of the Quality Assurance Agency (which they all are) and are considered by the QAA to be “in good standing.”

So far, out of around 2,100 institutions that have applied for “Tier 4” [Student] licences, more than 400 have had their licence applications refused. The system ought, over time, to weed out most if not all of the bogus colleges. But it will not deal with the problem of bogus students. Indeed, as the bogus colleges are forced to shut down, bona fide universities and degree-granting colleges can expect to receive more applications from those who have no intention of studying here, but are willing to pay whatever it takes to gain entry into the UK.

When the licensing system was being worked out, Universities UK cut a deal with the UKBA which (it is clear to me) failed to understand what it was being induced to agree to. UUK gained exemption for all its members from the need to undergo specialist visa-related accreditation, claiming that periodic "audit" by the QAA (to which all publicly-funded degree-granting bodies must subscribe) was sufficient.

Well, it isn’t, for the simple reason that a QAA audit deals with none of the matters that are pertinent to the recruitment and monitoring of international students. So we can expect, for the foreseeable future, the continuing presence on our university campuses of persons who are not genuine students, but who have simply exploited a very imperfect system to gain entry to the UK. And it is also worth noting that there is now a movement amongst some academics (wholly misguided in my view) to "boycott" such monitoring as does or will take place (such as the reporting of students who fail to materialise for required lectures and supervisions) on the grounds that such practices [to quote from a letter in the Guardian of 14 April] “distort academic freedoms.”

Genuine international students have absolutely nothing to fear from the new arrangements, which will, inter alia, protect them from exploitation by bogus institutions offering sham qualifications. Moreover, the need for bona fide institutions to undergo regular visa-related inspections and spot-checks by the UKBA constitutes additional guarantees. But, as I have indicated, there remain issues to be resolved relating to the current exemption from accreditation enjoyed by QAA subscribers.

The exemption needs to be revoked. As for my fellow academics who have (as it were) declared their intention to wreck the new arrangements, I urge them to discard the pretence that these arrangements have any impact on “academic freedoms” (a claim that is patently absurd), and to play their full part in educating genuine students and exposing the imposters.