By David Matthews. As long as applicants fulfil language, qualifications and maintenance criteria, ‘they are welcome’, says BIS spokeswoman.
Overseas students do not need to be the “brightest and best” to study in the UK, a government official has said, despite Home Office rhetoric on the issue. The phrase has been used repeatedly by ministers in relation to international students. While defending government policy on overseas students in June, Mark Harper, the immigration minister, said that the UK was “open for business” to the “brightest and best” migrants. More...
French lessons for UK higher education
By Louisiane Ferlier. Despite its flaws, French higher education teaches a thing or two about social and political cohesion, says Louisiane Ferlier.
In their 2004 publication, Universality or Specialisation?, Christian Allies and Michel Troquet summed up the dilemma faced by the French higher education
system. For France, the existence of an "international education market dominated by the English speaking world" has made adapting to competition particularly difficult. Although Allies and Troquet adequately highlighted the complicated consequences of this choix cornélien, or predicament, almost 10 years later no clear strategy has been adopted. Neither the French ministry of higher education, its academic institutions, nor the academic community itself (that elusive mystical unicorn of a beast) have opted for universality or officially endorsed the specialisation that is evidently taking place. More...
By 
