Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
MR DAVID
GREEN, DR
NEIL KEMP
AND MR
NICK BUTLER
7 JUNE 2004
Q1 Chairman: Can I welcome David Green,
Nick Butler and Neil Kemp to our proceedings. It is always a pleasure
when people can respond with the sort of alacrity that you have.
Which anniversary was it that the British Council celebrated?
Mr Green: It was our 70th anniversary.
Q2 Chairman: It was of such interest
to those who have been working on the higher education front as
this Committee has for some time that we immediately felt that
there were some questions that we would like to discuss with you.
So, thank you to all three of you and your team for coming in.
This really is a fact-finding first session. For a long time,
as you know, when we have had informal visits to the British Council,
we thought it would be appropriate at some time to have the British
Council in and just talk about your work and perhaps we can now
make this a more regular occasion. For this one, we do intend
making a short inquiry around this interview and perhaps having
the Higher Education Funding Council and perhaps the appropriate
Minister in. So, if we could begin by asking you, David, how long
you have been Director-General for now.
Mr Green: Nearly five years.
Q3 Chairman: Perhaps you would like to
say a few words to get us started.
Mr Green: Thank you very much
for giving us this opportunity to provide evidence to the Select
Committee and we would very much welcome a more regular opportunity
if that were your desire. If I could just introduce Neil Kemp
on my left who is the Director of our Education UK Marketing Division
within the British Council and, on my right, Nick Butler who is
the Education Exports Manager within that same division, the Education
UK Marketing Division. I would like to begin by saying why we
at British Council place so much importance on the flow of international
students to the UK. Clearly, they bring very significant revenue
to the UK. Education is a multi-billion pound earner for the UK
and a significant part of that overall £10 billion that comes
into the UK as revenue, comes from the direct revenue in terms
of fees and then, on top of that, the wider spending of those
students once they are here. As well as bringing revenue, they
provide international diversity to our higher education and other
education institutions and critically, from a public diplomacy
perspective, they form a key long-term resource for the UK within
the countries that they emanate from and, when they return to
those home countries, they remain by and large very good friends
of the UK. When the Prime Minister launched the initiative to
attract more students here, he very much saw it as enabling the
UK to build ties with the next generation of leaders in their
field, whether it is in politics, law, science or those working
in the trade and industry or whatever. The work that has been
done in promoting UK education abroad with a properly marketed
Education UK brand over the past five years, I think is an unsung
success story. We will exceed the PSA targets that were set of
an additional 50,000 HE students per annum and an additional 25,000
further education students per annum and we know that they will
be exceeded and they have already been exceeded at the higher
education level and we are confident that they will also be exceeded
at the FE level. This has been through teamwork, through a range
of Government departments lead by the DfES working together including
the Foreign Commonwealth Office, the Home Office Devolved Administrations
and the DTI particularly, and obviously the wider education sector
including the umbrella body such as UK and also all the various
institutions. Together, they have helped to deliver those targets.
The Education UK marketing campaign has been very important as
has things like making it easier for students to work whilst they
are here and also streamlined visa procedures. So, having met
those targets, it may be tempting to think that we can rest on
our laurels and it may also be tempting to conclude that, as you
will have seen from the Vision 2020 document,[1]
because demand will increase so much, there is no need to do any
further marketing of UK education but there clearly is and I know
that you recognise that and it is worth just pointing out that
research has shown us that approximately two thirds of all students
wanting to study overseas choose the country in which they want
to study before they choose the institution or even the course.
So, the actual branding of the UK in terms of our educational
offer is very critical. Secondly, competition is becoming much,
much faster and although demand in terms of the number of places
sought is increasing, so is competition and countries such as
Australia and New Zealand are now investing a very significant
amount of Government money in order to market their educational
opportunities. Australia, for example, is investing £44 million
over the next three years in order to market Australia's education.
Q4 Chairman: Did you say £44 million?
Mr Green: Yes, £44 million
over three years. France and Germany, for instance, are now offering
high-quality postgraduate courses through the medium of English
language for the first time. It is also worth mentioning that
the UK HE sector is very dependent on the annual income of the
£1.5 billion that comes in via fees generated by international
students. We have undertaken a lot of work in talking to the various
interested parties and the feedback we have had from all the education
and training providers, whether it is higher education or further
education and we should not forget the ELT sector, the English
language teaching sector in all of this, is that there should
be a central strategic direction for the marketing of UK education
globally—it is very important that there is a central strategic
direction and that it is not left only to individual institutions—and
those comments have come as much from universities such as Oxford
University or the LSE as from modern universities and the FE sector
and the ELT sector. We come to the end of the Prime Minister's
initiative and funding for it at the end of this financial year
and, if we are going to continue to effectively market the UK
as an attractive place for people to come and study, then we do
have to continue to invest and we cannot, as I say, rest on our
laurels. So, we are in discussion with the Department for Education
and Skills and they obviously must take the lead in all of this
along with the representative bodies such as Universities UK,
such as the AOC, the Universities Scotland, English UK and SCOP,
and other Government departments particularly, as I have mentioned
the FCO, the Home Office and the DTI. We have elements within
our spending review bid in order to enable us to take this forward
over the coming years but this has to be very much a long-term
strategy and I think the key message that I have to the Select
Committee is that whilst it has been a success story so far, if
we are going to maintain our market share and if we are going
to manage to continue to attract in excess of or even 50,000 students
per year[2]—and
you have to do that year on year—then it will require continued
investment in this area.
Q5 Chairman: You mentioned the PM's initiative:
how much resource was that over how many years?
Mr Green: Roughly speaking, the
resource was around £5 million per annum and that was jointly
contributed to by the British Council, by the DfES and by the
various Government departments such as the DTI and also devolved
countries. Neil, am I right in saying that it is about £5
million per annum?[3]
Dr Kemp: I think it was a little
less than that over that period but you are right, the groups
were as you say. There was less in the early part of the time
and it increased over the period.
Mr Green: That was to develop
the Education UK brand and also the website and I do not know
if you have managed to see the website, but that now has registered
on it 400,000 courses that are available within the United Kingdom
and I am told is the most extensive database of courses anywhere
in the world.
Dr Kemp: It gets four million
visitors a year.
Q6 Chairman: People tend to say to members
of this Committee, certainly to me and some of my colleagues,
that it is interesting that our higher education and other levels
of education are attractive to people from overseas but that the
marketing strategy, the way the 123 higher education institutions
market themselves/brand themselves, is a bit of a hotchpotch,
a bit amateur. Do you think that is right and, if it is, can we
do anything to improve the overall performance?
Mr Green: I think you could have
said that five years ago but I do not think you can say that now
because I think a lot has happened through the Prime Minister's
initiative which has helped to gear up institutions, whether they
are higher education, further education or schools, to appreciate
that just getting someone to register for your course is not enough,
you have to then provide a very good experience for them whilst
they are here. There was some research that was commissioned by
us and then disseminated very widely which did draw out some of
the areas where we were weaker in the UK in terms of the way in
which we cared for our students when they came here, but I think
that the picture has been a positive one and I think educational
institutions have responded very well and do appreciate the need
to do more than just offer a course to students. They also recognise
that having a central brand and having an Education UK brand is
important to them and, whilst the very well-known university brands,
such as Oxford University, the LSE or wherever, can manage to
some extent on their own, they also realise that having a strong
Education UK brand which reinforces the fact that the UK is a
high-quality provider of education, is a nice place and an attractive
place to come and study, and is also a gateway to Europe and that
the people are friendly and are not stuffy or very off-putting
or reserved, which is the perception that some people have, are
all helpful in attracting people to come. So, I think actually
institutions have responded very well to the challenge.
Mr Butler: There are 180 higher
education institutions in the UK, 400 or 500 further education
colleagues and several hundred ELT schools, not all of them promote
themselves internationally in exactly the same way, so there might
well be a perception that there is a slightly patchy approach
to international promotion, but I think you will find that the
universities and colleges who take it seriously and who have been
promoting themselves overseas are expert marketers and very, very
useful.
Q7 Chairman: Can I ask you about quality.
There is no doubt, as you say, that people very often choose their
country first and their institution and course second, but surely
quality does matter. This country has had over many years a reputation
for high-quality education compared to many of its competitors.
Are you concerned that that quality, as we expand the market or
expand to exploit that market, is good enough and do we have the
safeguards in place to make sure that we maintain the quality
of what is offered to both our own students and to students who
come in from overseas?
Mr Green: Certainly the reputation
that we have is very much that we are a quality provider of education
and that is the message I get wherever I travel and that is very,
very important and, if we lose that reputation, then clearly the
ramifications are very, very serious. In terms of whether or not
that quality is being retained, I think I am going to pass that
to Neil who has much closer contact with the institutions, although
I think our quality assurance mechanisms in this country are very
good and one of the other areas the British Council is involved
in is in terms of educational reform and working with ministries
of education and one of the things in which they are very interested
is the way in which we monitor and maintain the quality of our
education. So, in terms of our mechanisms, I think they are strong.
Dr Kemp: We are a great admirer
of the QAA internationally. I am sure you have had others visiting
this Committee who might not have said it in quite so straightforward
terms. The great thing about the QAA is that they are very open
in publishing all of their quality audits/quality visits and,
when you are working overseas, the ability to say, "It is
there on the website; you can just go into a website where they
show all of their quality reviews" is a very strong selling
point. What we found in the research was the two major selling
points or perceptions amongst international students of UK higher
education was quality and the employability associated with the
qualification. There is a little overlap between those two, but
they are the two major selling points that put us head and shoulders
above everyone else. So, if we compromise these, we lose our markets.
Going back to the original statement that David mentioned about
the perception of the UK as being the key selling point to an
international student, it is the perception of the UK as an education
destination that is crucial in that. Okay, lifestyle and that
might creep into others perceptions and it will vary from country
to country. European and US students might want lifestyle because
they assume quality but, particularly with Asian students, quality
is the top, and it is that perception in the education destination.
Q8 Chairman: What damage does it do when
we see the growth of bogus universities, universities purporting
to be institutions of high repute which are actually a small back
office in a seedy street in some part of London, Dorset or wherever?
There have been several press articles about students who have
pitched up in this country to institutions where they thought
that the qualification they had would then give them entry to
other things. Is there not a concern here that these shady operators
could actually undermine the image we have of quality institutions
and quality courses?
Dr Kemp: You are totally right.
It is very, very damaging and anything that can be done to ensure
that institutions that are trading like that are not allowed to
trade, particularly internationally where lack of information
certainly might not help, is to our advantage. You have to remember
that the reason these institutions are coming here to set up is
because we have the quality ring about us. So, they come here
and, by association, are using that as an inherent aspect of their
marketing, and a student in Guangyhou or in East Java does not
necessarily know that the University of Knightsbridge, to name
one that did exist and I do not know if it still does, has a ring
of truth about it—it is British, therefore it must be; however,
it is registered in whichever group of islands, I do not know.
Q9 Chairman: What would you do? Would
you regulate? Who should regulate these institutions?
Dr Kemp: It is what I think we
are going through at the moment. Nick has been involved in this.
Mr Butler: We are working together
with the Home Office, IND and the DfES on a number of regulations
with a view to setting up a register of education providers in
the UK with a view to getting them to full accreditation within
the next few years. So, it is something which I think the DfES
are leading on in terms of the registration and we are hoping
to see some more concrete proposals in the next few weeks.
Q10 Chairman: So, something is being
done?
Mr Butler: Something is being
done, yes, and we welcome that very, very much.
Q11 Chairman: Do you all see the need
for some regulation?
Mr Butler: Yes.
Mr Green: We have concentrated
here on the higher education sector but it also absolutely critical
in the English language sector too where there are a number of
bogus institutions operating which does then mean that the quality
and the perception of the quality is reduced very dramatically
and again work is being done in that area and that is urgent.
Q12 Chairman: When we visit embassies
and high commissions in various parts of the world, we do sometimes
hear the voice that says, "A substantial proportion of students
who apply to go to university in Britain or to institutions in
Britain disappear"—they do not complete the course
and perhaps do not take up the course, but they just use it as
a migration backdoor. Is that something you are aware of and is
it as significant as some embassies have flagged up to us?
Mr Green: I am aware of that statement
but the reality is not the particular case. I have just today
flown back from a visit to Singapore, Taipei and Korea and have
been talking to the embassies in those countries. They say that
the return rate is very, very high, more like 100% but, again,
I am going to turn to Neil for further detail on that.
Dr Kemp: At the HE level in particular,
there is not a strong large degree of evidence. What you might
find is that students accepted in one UK institution—and
we are talking about public sector institutions—might switch
to another one after they get here. So, we do get that. Nick has
been part of the Home Office Working Party on this which has been
looking at this in some detail.
Mr Butler: It is something which
we have also been looking into and again I think the Home Office
are looking into a way of tracking students who have offers to
come to the UK and then either do not turn up at that institution
or will start for a few weeks and then disappear. We do need to
look into this because, as Neil said, it is quite often the case
that students will come into one institution and find it or the
course not to their liking exactly and will, quite legitimately,
move to another course. My impression is that some of the concern
which has been raised in some quarters about massive numbers of
students disappearing and migrating into the UK is not necessarily
the case. I think you would need to look more carefully about
where a student is actually going and I think that, on the whole,
they are studying in the UK and they will return to their country
of origin when they have finished their studies.
Q13 Chairman: What checks are made as
to whether or not they can actually afford the course they are
coming for and that the finances will be there, not just for a
1 year but perhaps for a 3-year course?
Mr Butler: This is something which
is normally carried out in the embassies by the entry clearance
officers as part of the application procedure. It is their responsibility
really to confirm to themselves that the student has sufficient
funds for the whole length of their study without recourse to
public funds.
Q14 Mr Pollard: Until I went to Russia
about three years ago, I did not know very much about the British
Council in truth and I was very impressed with what went on out
there. When you say the words "British Council", in
my mind's eye, I have a picture of a big, staid, solid old building
in which people sit and make decisions about things. I think you
have to move forward. I wonder whether you have thought of changing
the image at all and calling it Education or Educulture UK or
something like that, so that will actually start moving it forward
because, if you said to people in Central Africa, "The British
Council are here to help with your education", they would
not necessarily put the two together unless they had been to Russia
like I have. I just wonder if you have thought of zipping up the
image.
Mr Green: Paradoxically, our image
in the countries in which we work—and we are working in
110 countries—is very strong and very positive and I do
not think that we are perceived as a stuffy organisation at all
in the countries in which we work, certainly not in Russia but
certainly not in many parts of Africa in which we are operating.
We do suffer from a lack of profile within the UK and that is
because we have not been able to invest resources on raising our
profile within the UK. So, there is a misperception and people
say, "British Council for what in the UK? Is it for clearing
rubbish? What are you for?" I believe that there is an issue
in terms of people's perceptions of the British Council within
the UK and I am very keen that parliamentarians for one should
visit British Council premises overseas whenever they can because
certainly people who have visited do not have that image. We have
invested a great deal over the last three to four years on making
sure that the image we project within the country is of contemporary
UK. So, you will find bright modern offices with video conferencing
facilities, Internet connectivity, lots of glass, lots of air
and lots of bright colours. The office in Abuja in Nigeria—I
do not know if any of you have been to visit the office there—is
seen as the most modern office in the whole of Nigeria. In fact,
the roundabout on which it is situated is called the British Council
roundabout. The three countries which I have just visited were
all to do with opening new offices and to upgrade the premises
to make sure that they did project the right image. So, I think
that our problem is not overseas but is in the UK in terms of
people really understanding what we do.
Mr Butler: That is in terms of
the British Council but, in terms of education promotion itself,
the Education UK brand is also a very young image. There is a
campaign called Real UK where we have brought a number of young
teenagers to the UK to see what the UK is like and I think we
use those images back in the countries concerned. So, I think
you will find that it is a much younger image than perhaps we
three portray!
Q15 Jonathan Shaw: Your headline, "UK
Economy at risk, warns British Council". Are you not being
just alarmist? Is it not rather transparent? The CSR has come
up, is coming to an end, your money has come to funding (sic),
so you produce this report. It is the usual game really, is it
not? You have just told us about all this money you have for new
offices and there is a British Council roundabout and you are
doing wonderfully well. You are just pitching in like everyone
else, are you not?
Mr Green: No.
Q16 Jonathan Shaw: Why are you so different?
Why is the economy in peril unless Gordon Brown gives the education
departments more money in order that it can pass that money on
to the British Council?
Mr Green: What we are signalling
there is that the HE sector and indeed FE and ELT sectors do bring
in a huge amount of revenue to the UK and that, if we do not continue
to invest in promoting the UK as an education destination, then
the UK economy will suffer. Maybe "at risk" is too strong
but it certainly will suffer. For the reasons that I gave in my
introduction, we must not be complacent about the fact that we
have done well in terms of attracting students to the UK but that
is only because there has been this concerted effort over five
years and, to bring in an additional 50,000 students every year—and
a great many of those are postgraduates, so it does mean getting
an additional 50,000 year on year—does require investment.
Given the increasing competition that I have described, if we
do not invest and we do not work out what the long-term strategy
for the UK should be in terms of international education, then
the UK economy will suffer, but not just the economy but I think
also the public diplomacy that I talked about in terms of winning
friends for the UK is really critical to the future of the UK.
So, okay, maybe a little strong, but the message is a real one.
Q17 Jonathan Shaw: Have any other countries
seen a decrease in the number of students going to their universities?
What about any of our competitors over the years? You have talked
about the attractiveness; are there any countries that have failed
to make themselves attractive or seen their attractiveness go
downhill, as it were?
Mr Green: In terms of market share,
the States are very much the leaders although I think there are
some concerns about loss of market share for the States over the
last year.
Q18 Jonathan Shaw: But that is to do
with the Middle East, Iraq and September 11.
Mr Green: It is related to that
and a very much tougher visa regime that they are operating is
certainly putting students off. We come second in terms of market
share currently and then the fierce competitors are Australia
and Canada and then there are other ones that I have mentioned
such as New Zealand, France and Germany, coming up behind. Our
market share is currently around 23% and has been around that
sort of level although did start to dip before the campaign and
has risen again. In terms of countries whose market shares have
dropped, I will ask Neil to comment.
Dr Kemp: We did lose over that
latter part of the 1990s as Australia advanced. Definitely, the
US has lost in the last 24 months.
Q19 Jonathan Shaw: Who has picked up
from that then?
Dr Kemp: We have.
1 Note: See British Council: Vision 2020:
Forecasting International Student Mobility-A UK perspective
(P267/NLP). Back
2
Note by Witness: If we are going to maintain our market
share and if we are going to manage to continue to attract in
excess of, or even 500,000 students per year (not 50,000 per year
as indicated) then it will require continued investment in this
area. Back
3
Note by Witness: The correct figure should be £5
million from Government over three years, or £2.5 million
from both the DfES and the British Council per annum. Back
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