Border agency regulations force universities to monitor overseas students

The UK Border Agency (UKBA) has implemented new guidelines for universities, making it obligatory for them to monitor the attendance of overseas students.

Jeremy Oppenheim, National Lead for Temporary Migration at the UKBA said: "We have made it clear that we will not tolerate either the fraudulent applicants trying to abuse Britain’s immigration rules, or the dodgy colleges that facilitate them. However, Britain will always welcome genuine students who are coming here to receive a first-class education."

The attendance monitoring procedure includes ten separate points of contact, which are meant to ensure no student gets reported to the UKBA without their absence being verified extensively.

Mr Oppenheim added: "These new requirements were discussed at length with representatives of the education sector, including representatives of higher and further education institutions as part of the consultation."

Universities have to qualify as "sponsors" with the UKBA before they are allowed to receive students or staff from overseas, in order for them to do so they have to fully comply with these new regulations.

The new regulations also state that overseas students should not be allowed more than two resits on their exams, in order to "prevent students from unnecessarily prolonging their stay in the UK".

There has been criticism of the new regulations, which  aim to reduce the number of immigrants posing as students entering the country.

Dominic Scott, Chief Executive for the UK Council for International Student Affairs (UKCISA), expressed certain reservations on the new guidelines.

He told The Journal: "No-one in the sector—nor in UKCISA—was or is entirely comfortable with the requirements to ‘report’ on attendance, although this has now been amended for higher education, to the more flexible interpretation on ‘expected contacts’ and only if ten of those in a row are missed would any report be necessary.

"I think we have to accept that in the new ‘sponsor system’ there may have to be some sort of tracking required to ensure students are doing in the UK what they said they intend to [study], but we will continue to work towards getting a definition which makes sense in terms of learning styles and patterns in Higher Education. No-one expects that to be a ‘roll-call’ as in primary school."

All British higher education institutions must comply with the the new rules by next year.

Three schools—Science and Engineering, Medicine and Veterinary and Politics and Social Science—at the University of Edinburgh have begun pilot schemes in monitoring attendance.

Commenting on the matter Mr Scott added: “We and Universities UK have said that we oppose this regulation and continue to be in discussions on it. However, there are some students who have in the past made little progress, continued to fail, done little work and stayed on in the UK largely to work, and the UKBA are clearly intent on stamping this out.

"For the time being universities may have to say, in a way which is probably not discriminatory, you can all do three re-sits under our regulations, but we cannot help you extend your visa under UKBA regulations for more than two."

All new requirements come into force on 1 February 2010, although most universities have already stated they are fully compliying under the UKBA’s regulations.