College London, at Bengal Club
on Monday. (Sanat Kr Sinha)
April 10: Britain is fighting the perception that it has become "less welcoming" of foreign students, including those from India, according to Alice Gast, president of Imperial College London.
"Brexit certainly makes it more imperative to make sure that Brexit is not interpreted as a statement against international students.... But the rhetoric (post-Brexit) has been interpreted to be that UK is less welcoming to foreign students, and that is something we are working on to make sure it is not the case from our perspective. From policy, we are still very open and we are welcoming," she said at Bengal Club today.
Gast was trying to address perceptions about UK's changing face as an education destination in response to a question from Metro on whether Brexit and student visa laws enforced by the Theresa May government were coming in the way of Imperial College London or any other British university drawing foreign students.
A chemical engineer with roots in Texas, Gast had earlier addressed a session on Innovation and Research: Industry-University Collaboration, conducted by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
In her speech, she had spoken about Imperial College London drawing scores of students from India over the years. Asked whether she was just as optimistic about the future, Gast said: "The UK still values having international students."
Students scouting for opportunities abroad at an education fair in Calcutta this February had admitted to being apprehensive about the UK as a potential destination in the post-Brexit era.
Several of these students told Metro that Brexit and incidents of racial bias in the US were pushing them to consider France, which is positioning itself as a preferred higher education destination.
Limitations in the duration of stay in the UK after a course is completed is one of the factors affecting the choices of Indian students. The rules governing student visas got tougher last June.
In contrast, France allows a foreign student to stay in the country for up to a year after the completion of studies so that he or she can find a job, a senior official of the French consulate in Calcutta had said during the fair.
Gast countered talk about the UK closing its doors by highlighting "streamlined" visa opportunities for postgraduate students at four universities - Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial College and Bath. Such a visa enables a student to stay in the UK for six months after the completion of the course.
On France being more generous in this regard, she said: "I have been advocating this for one or two years. As I mentioned, many of our students are very entrepreneurial. So I would like to see that (stay) extended."
Gast insisted that Imperial College London had not witnessed a decline in the number of student applications from foreign students, including India. "We have currently about 300 students from India. Well, UK overall has seen some decrease in the number of students from India. But we have stayed steady at our number of applications and admissions. We very much want to send the message that they should continue to apply," she said.
In an interview with the Financial Times last December, Gast said that far from clamping down further on international student visas, the British government should consider allowing foreign graduates to stay and work for longer after their studies, especially those with expertise in science, technology and engineering.