Examination of witnesses (Questions 140
- 162)
THURSDAY 12 FEBRUARY 1998
PROFESSOR PETER
SCOTT, MR
TONY LOCKHART,
MS HELEN
POWELL and REV
TOM BRUCH
Ms Abbott
140. You say in paragraph 9 of the memorandum,
"Student applicants and local advisers speak of unreasonable
delays and rude staff", so it is not just on the basis of
that visit?
(Ms Powell) No, it is not. Thank you, Diane. We
attended an education festival where we saw at least 8,000 students
in Karachi, Islamabad and Lahore, and again there were constant
complaints about the ECOs, their manner and interview techniques.
Chairman
141. Not just Islamabad?
(Ms Powell) No, Karachi and Lahore as well. Approximately
8,000, because we were clicking them as they were coming in.
142. Did you raise it when you were in Islamabad
with senior staff?
(Ms Powell) Yes, who were very opinionated. They
told us their views too.
Ms Abbott
143. What were their views?
(Ms Powell) Afterwards one of the first and second
secretaries commented, when we were discussing our half hour training—and
I want to quote it properly so I'll have to read it—we were
discussing work and if a student goes overseas his spouse can
work if he is there for over 12 months, and one of them commented
that partners of international students should not be able to
work in his opinion. He had a case where a partner went and she
could not speak a word of English, "What job could she possibly
do?" That was an opinion by one of the secretaries.
Chairman
144. Did you raise that with the High Commissioner
when you were in Islamabad? Have you raised it subsequently with
the Foreign Office?
(Ms Powell) No. As we said, we were waiting until
we had given our evidence here. We have written our report which
went to the British Council. That was not just it, it was the
actual opinions we had gathered in the training session which
was half an hour. We gained quite a few opinions in just half
an hour.
Ms Abbott
145. Tell us about their opinions.
(Ms Powell) When we train ECOs once a month at
the Foreign Office we train them before they go on their first
postings, we have an hour slot there and we always use the DSP
(diplomatic service procedure) and Chapter 14 of that states the
benefits to the UK. I started with this and the confrontational
guy said in relation to academic benefit, "International
students were actually taking the place of UK students; there
were no cultural benefits to the UK; institutions are only concerned
with the payment of fees and overlook qualifications." Basically
the first page of the DSP was of no use when issuing a visa, he
did not have it in his mind at all.
146. When he said they were taking the place
of UK students, did he actually say "UK"?
(Ms Powell) No, he did not actually.
147. What did he say?
(Ms Powell) He said "British students".
He did not say "UK", he said "British students".
Mr Heath: I do not
think he had read the mission statement!
Ms Abbott: Clearly!
Chairman
148. You mentioned partners in the last
exchange and again in evidence we have seen evidence of some difficulties
of students being able to bring their partners into this country,
perhaps for the reasons you have outlined that there is an attitude
that perhaps this woman cannot speak English and she could not
get a job. How big a problem is that? Is that widespread? The
difficulty which was put to us in evidence was of a partner being
asked to supply information which was not readily available in
terms of financial support for the partner when the partner visited
this country. Issues which, I got the impression, the university
or college were reluctant to involve themselves in and felt they
should not have to provide this information. Does the admission
of partners come up as a big problem for overseas students here?
(Rev Bruch) To be honest, it is not one of the
most prominent problems that is brought to the attention of my
organisation. There are rules and our experience has been generally
that if the applicant can show he or she meets the requirements
of those rules to enter the United Kingdom, they are admitted.
I do not think that is a big problem area. There is far less discretion
on the application of students' dependents rules than there is
for the student rules themselves. There is still the intention
to leave and so forth but it seems to be a much simpler operation.
Of course there are all sorts of groups about whom our organisations
hear, but that group is not one of the main problems.
Ms Abbott
149. Can I press you on the attitudes of
staff and bring in something which the Foreign Office told us
about, which was forgery? I am not sure in this context what people
are supposed to be forging actually, but when you say that staff
are rude, what do you mean exactly? Are they just rude in a general
sense, do they come with certain presumptions?
(Rev Bruch) I think there are a couple of important
factors which come together, and perhaps this is something the
Committee can pursue when it visits the posts. At the one interview
I sat in on at Islamabad, though I have sat in on others elsewhere,
there was a very sharp focus on the requirement that applicants
intend to leave the United Kingdom. That is much less easily documented.
There is not so much hard evidence of that as there is with regard
to some of the other paragraphs of the rules, like acceptance
at a university, enough money to live on and meet the cost of
the course, et cetera. In order to satisfy themselves that the
applicant does meet the requirements of the rules—perhaps
because of the way the interview is conducted, perhaps the main
criteria they are using to establish that judgment—rudeness
creeps in.
150. What sort of rudeness? Their tone of
voice?
(Rev Bruch) We have heard repeatedly from the
Migration & Visa Department that the principle that should
govern the forming of the judgment is to establish the balance
of probabilities. In other words, they are to assess whether or
not on the balance of probabilities the student fulfils the requirements
of intention to leave. In fact my experience is that they are
using a different principle and that is, beyond reasonable doubt.
This creates a very confrontational, aggressive approach to the
interview. I would agree with the JCWI representative, and again
I can provide documented cases about this too, that a whole string
of questions is thrown at the applicant. Sometimes I think lack
of cultural awareness gets in the way. In Northern Europe it is
common to ask a direct question and expect a direct answer, and
if you do not get a direct answer you might well think the applicant
is being evasive, hiding something. This can lead to impatience,
it can lead to an aggressive tone. I have seen it cause the interviews
to deteriorate. What I do wonder in terms of the training given
to the ECOs—and I do not know the answer to this but I do
begin to wonder—whether more emphasis is not given to equipping
them with interviewing skills, I should say interrogation skills,
based on the criminal context than cross-cultural communication
and cultural awareness based on an international application process.
151. Is the point about the interviews you
sat in on that if that is what they are like when they know somebody
is watching them, what are they like when nobody is there! What
do you think about the idea of tape-recording interviews?
(Rev Bruch) I think that is a good idea.
(Ms Powell) Superb. I actually listened to one
of the interviews and one of the comments was a personal comment
through an interpreter, "Tell him if he does not hurry up
with his answer, if he is not finished in 15 minutes, he does
not get his visa", and I thought, "I wonder if he is
going to write that down", and he did not, he did not write
any of his side comments down, and that was quite an aggressive
tactic to confuse the applicant and humiliate him.
Chairman
152. One of the things which has come out
this morning is in terms of the attitude of entry clearance officers
on the displacement of British students, in other words that overseas
students are taking the place of British students. There is the
idea that there is a financial aspect to this in that obviously
students coming to this country are quite valuable to academic
institutions. Do you think there is any suggestion that perhaps
there is a deliberate policy of limiting applications from overseas
students because there might be this fear of displacement? Would
there be displacement? If all the students you referred to were
granted admission to this country to study—and you referred
to 8,000 or many thousand—would there be any displacement?
(Professor Scott) No, there would not. I think
that kind of remark demonstrates——
153. Would there be any favouritism towards
overseas students as against a British student who perhaps was
involved with student loans, student tuition fees, and an overseas
student who comes with a cheque in his hand?
(Professor Scott) No, I do not think so. The current
system which has been in place since 1992 is that home student
numbers are effectively capped, so a university is not able to
increase their full-time under-graduate home-student numbers.
So the question of a British student being displaced by an international
student simply does not arise.
Ms Abbott
154. Maybe you should train as an entry
clearance officer, Eric, surely the overseas students actually
subsidise the British students?
(Ms Powell) Absolutely.
Chairman
155. If an entry clearance officer is using
the argument of displacement and student numbers in this country
are capped, then it is an argument he should not be using.
(Professor Scott) No, he should not be; it is
a totally invalid argument.
156. Do you think there is any substance
in the suggestion that there could be some deliberate policy of
limiting student numbers? Do you think there is any overall policy
to limit overseas student numbers, for whatever reason? Not at
entry clearance officer level but from senior management?
(Professor Scott) No,
I do not think so. At that level I think there is clear recognition
that international students bring real benefits to Britain and
to British higher and further education institutions. I think
it arises much more in the context of an individual entry clearance
officer discovering what he sees as a fraudulent application and
really applying too harsh a test on that. The general idea of
having more international students is one which I think would
be supported.
(Mr Lockhart) While we are talking about general
facts and figures of the market, Britain has for sometime held
a market share in international students of around 30 per cent
of all those international students studying in English-speaking
countries. That has been steadily increasing. In the meantime,
Australia in the last ten years have come from virtually nowhere
to a market share of about 8 per cent and they have done this
through a number of very specific policies and practices which
have been designed to encourage and provide a positive open door
to bona fide students in Australia. This is paying off. This is
something which we should be taking into account very firmly,
particularly in the context of what is looking likely to be a
significant risk of crash in our main markets in the tiger economies,
where we could witness a significant loss of student numbers and
income to the British economy if we do not adopt tactics and strategies
which will encourage and continue to encourage.
157. It comes down to this difference—what
I am perceiving to be the difference—between senior policy
managers, who as you point out know there is a great benefit from
overseas students to this country and therefore at senior level
the policy would be to encourage overseas students to come and
study here to facilitate that, and the entry clearance officer
level where it is exactly the opposite, where the student is then
quizzed as to his financial status and, in the eyes of the entry
clearance officer, whether the course is of benefit to him.
(Professor Scott) I would simply say that makes
a very strong argument for better training of entry clearance
officers, not only in issues of cultural awareness but also in
issues of how the British higher education system currently works.
There is no possibility of British students being displaced by
international students. That is at a level of information which
perhaps the entry clearance officer may reasonably simply not
know.
158. Would that have been part of the training
you were unable to give in Islamabad? Would those issues have
arisen?
(Rev Bruch) Yes, they would. I must say the Migration
and Visa Department has actually been very supportive of the British
Council and UKCOSA in enabling us to have regular slots in the
training courses for entry clearance officers which take place
in London. So ten times a year, an hour each time, we talk about
these sorts of things. We talk about the benefits that international
students bring to the United Kingdom, why international students
want to come to the United Kingdom. And there are many misconceptions
from training entry clearance officers on that. We use case studies
involving bringing dependents and students. We find them very
useful sessions and I believe that participants also find them
so, as can be seen from the evaluations appraising the training
of entry clearance officers, and we are grateful to the MVD for
giving us that opportunity. We think there is more training input
which could be offered to entry clearance officers from which
they would gain even greater value. Yes, that would precisely
have been the sort of thing we would have done in Islamabad in
a more extended way, looking at more case studies and involving
the local British Council staff as well as entry clearance officers
working together and talking through some of the educational and
cultural issues which are inevitably part of making entry clearance
decisions. I do think sometimes entry clearance officers forget
they are bringing their own misconceptions, preconceptions, misunderstandings,
ideology to entry clearance decisions. They deny it. In fact this
was one of the things we discussed in Islamabad. They deny it
while at the same time saying that home students are being booted
out by international students, that international students bring
no cultural benefits to the United Kingdom. Why should spouses
think they can work in the United Kingdom? They totally reject
the importance of the introductory paragraph of Chapter 14 of
the DSP as having any meaning for their entry clearance decisions.
So I think training is very much at the heart of what our organisations
would commend to the Committee for consideration as to how to
improve matters.
159. Is there anything we have not touched
on throughout this morning's session which you would wish to raise?
Is there anything you feel we have missed? Any further points
you wish to put to us?
(Professor Scott) The only comment I would like
to make is that some of the discussion has been quite critical
about the performance and behaviour of entry clearance officers.
We do want to emphasise that we saw in New Delhi a much better
system operating, so there are models of good practice which already
exist. We would not want to give the impression this was a general
problem with all entry clearance officers; it is not at all. Also
to re-emphasise the point that Tom Bruch has just made about training
being a very important element in improving the situation.
Ms Abbott
160. If there is one thing you would do
to improve the management of Islamabad, particularly those who
were there, what would it be?
(Mr Lockhart) I hoped you would ask that!
161. I did not want to disappoint you!
(Mr Lockhart) The one thing I would do is the
kind of fast track approach which currently is working in New
Delhi.
162. For students?
(Mr Lockhart) For students, yes. This enables
the whole process to be undertaken in a customer friendly and
relatively rapid way, where information is freely exchanged without
having this kind of confrontational impact. This is the kind of
thing which is working, as you may well see, in New Delhi and
which the Australians have introduced in a number of their posts
overseas as well.
(Ms Powell) It was introduced in the summer when
the computers went down. The High Commission had actually advertised
this new fast track system, "We are going to help you with
your entry clearance" and promised people it was going to
happen, and then it did not. I thought that was really a terrible
customer service. It was advertised and then it just did not happen,
which meant that British Council students and self-funded students
did not get to the start of their courses in August.
(Professor Scott) The only other comment I would
make is that years ago I had experience of being an international
student myself in the United States, and although the immigration
controls were very rigorous they were very politely applied and
one was made to feel that although one was being checked very
carefully one was also being made to feel very welcome in the
United States.
(Rev Bruch) To add to the three F words—firm,
fast and fair—perhaps another ingredient which might be
commended to entry clearance officers, which is a little bit of
friendliness, which has a great deal of benefit to the country.
Chairman: Thank you
very much for coming here this morning. Let me again apologise
for the late start but thank you for your evidence.
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