Daily Times

On September 18, 2014, Scots voted no to the independence of Scotland from the UK in a historic referendum but under the assurance that more powers would be devolved to the Scottish parliament within the UK. On November 27, 2014, there appeared a report of the Smith Commission having recommendations for the devolution of powers to the Scottish parliament. The commission was headed by Lord Smith of Kelvin and the report depicted the agreement reached between Scotland’s five main political parties represented in Scottish parliament on the kind of new powers required for Scotland. It was in this background that the main political parties of the UK committed to turning the recommendations of the report into law.
Whereas the report focused on making the Scottish parliament stronger and more accountable, responsible and autonomous within the UK, under “additional issues for consideration”, Section 96 (2) of the report made an interesting recommendation: “The parties have raised a number of additional policy matters, which do not involve the devolution of a power to the Scottish parliament. They have agreed that the Scottish and UK governments should work together to explore the possibility of introducing formal schemes to allow international high education students graduating from Scottish further and higher education institutions to remain in Scotland and contribute to economic activity for a defined period of time.”
The recommendation indicates three points. Firstly, a debate occurred between the participants to devise ways to grant post-study stay and work permission to overseas students (obtaining higher education) in Scotland for a defined period of time. Secondly, the participants were keen to make post-study stay and work permission part of the devolution plan but that could not happen. Thirdly, both the Scottish and UK governments will find an agreed method to grant post-study stay and work permission to students enrolled in Scottish universities. It is in the background that since 2012 not only the pilot scheme to allow overseas students to stay in Scotland was abandoned but also that the UK’s home office applied a strict visa regime for overseas students. Now, the question is this: why is Scotland committed to inviting overseas students more than the rest of the UK?
The declared objective to do so is to let overseas students contribute to the Scottish economy after they finish their studies. However, there is another side of the story. For instance, on February 6, 2015, the newspaper of the University of Strathclyde, Scotland, published two important points: first, by getting enrolled and staying in Scotland for study, overseas students contributed around 441 million pounds to Scotland’s economy per year. Secondly, “the drop in numbers (of overseas students) is important since universities rely on the fees paid by overseas students to subsidise courses for Scottish students, with some universities charging up to 17,000 pounds a year.” These two points show that the arrival of overseas students is important not only for the health of the Scottish economy but also for helping Scottish students study further on subsidised rates at Scottish universities.
Herein lies a catch. There are two main routes to attract overseas students. The first is an increase in the quality of higher education and the second is the offer of post-study stay and work. Interestingly, in the recommendation made by the Smith Commission, nowhere has the intent been mentioned to increase the quality of higher education. Instead, all focus has been laid on the offer of post-study stay and work. That is, more overseas students should study at Scottish universities because, after they finish their higher education, they will be granted permission to stay and work in Scotland for a certain period of time. To make this possible, the participants of the Smith Commission tried to make this condition part of the devolution plan so that the federal government could not overrule or annul it, as the federal government did in 2012. When that could not happen, now hopes have been pinned on the future that, after the forthcoming general elections in the UK on May 7, both the Scottish and UK governments will sit down together to devise a plan to do so.
The bigger question is this: is it justifiable on legal and ethical grounds to lure overseas students to Scotland just because they can spend money (through paying their fees and meeting residential expenditures) to stimulate the economy of Scotland without having any guarantee to get high quality higher education (both academic and research) in return? No rational mind can consider it justifiable because of two reasons. First, this pattern of invitation opens space for Scottish universities to rob overseas students of their time and money by running bogus courses or the components of courses (the example of which are many, as have happened in the past) and awarding the students a sub-quality (or a compromised) degree. Secondly, in such a scenario, more probability exists that overseas students will tend to keep silent in the face of the possibility for post-study stay and work in Scotland as a reward. This weakness of overseas students, especially from developing countries, opens them up to exploitation at the hands of Scottish universities.
The declared objective in the recommendation of the Smith Commission’s report (i.e. to let overseas students contribute to the Scottish economy after they finish their studies) is also not convincing because one of the main grievances of Scotland in making an attempt to come out of the shackles of the UK was experiencing more joblessness than in the UK (as reported by the daily Herald, Scotland, on March 18, 2015, that the total jobless in Scotland was about 1,62,000, which was 5.9 percent compared to the UK’s 5.7 percent). Secondly, joblessness of the locals is still considered the main reason for racial assaults on foreigners. Hence, when Scotland itself is struggling with overcoming the crisis of unemployment, how it can assure overseas students of post-study work in Scotland is a riddle.

The writer is a freelance columnist and can be reached at qaisarrashid@yahoo.com