It is no easy feat to get admission into a foreign university, especially for Indian students. Besides the hundred entrance tests, documents proving one’s English proficiency, excellent grades in almost every educational institution, tons of references, clean records and more, one must also have the resources to fund their education abroad.
Of course, some scholarships do help those who are truly talented but unable to manage it financially, to be still able to get their education in a foreign institute. But, it is always a big task to do all that just to go outside the country for a few years for one’s education.
However, for a while now, allegations have been coming up about how some universities in the United Kingdom (UK) might be lowering their entry standards for students who can pay high fees.
A review has shed light on whether this is true or not.
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Recently, there have been several concerns about UK universities giving unfair advantages to foreign students by lowering entry standards for admission as long as they can pay a high fee for their admission.
Now, a review has been released addressing this, and so far, it has claimed that there are “no concerns” regarding these allegations.
The review was carried out by the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA), at the behest of the Universities UK representing 142 institutions in February.
The QAA reviewed the programmes of 34 universities volunteering to participate and claimed that the allegations did not hold up.
As per the review, “no concerns that providers were not following their published entry requirements”, and these were similar for both international programmes and courses for UK students.
However, reports claim that the review did mention how “international students have more opportunities to resit exams compared to their A-level counterparts.”
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The review also noted that students in the “vast majority of cases” for both types of courses “were achieving at an appropriate level”, however, it did include some recommendations for the universities such as:
- regularly assessing how many international students progress on to further study, compared with domestic students
- standardising assessment practices and rules on international foundation programmes
This is not the first time that UK universities have been accused of this, in February of this year, reports came out of how some colleges were paying middlemen or letting foreign students buy their way into admission even if they did not meet the official eligibility standards for the institution.
As per a report by The Times, a group of undercover reporters from the Sunday Times approached the recruitment official representing four of the Russell Group universities in the UK about how overseas students paying higher fees could get admission through “back door” routes.
The reporters posed as parents of international students with poor A-level (or equivalent) grades wanting a place at a UK university. Through their chats, they found that “international foundation courses” were being offered to international students for undergraduate degree courses that were not within the usual UCAS (Universities and Colleges Admissions Service) application route.
According to the report, the recruitment official said “International [students] pay more money and the [universities] will receive almost double, so they give leeway for international students.”
Another recruitment official claimed that around 30% of the foreign students, almost 30,000 a year, were getting a seat in UK colleges and were doing so through back-door routes as per reports.
It was also found that while domestic student fees come to around £9,250, international students can pay more than £40,000 to get admission.
The investigation also said that UK universities were paying millions of pounds to recruitment agents, with bases set up in India and China to find students who had bad grades but were willing to pay a high fee to study at the Russell Group universities.
An Indian in this sector speaking with TOI said, “China is doing this big time. Indian students are mindful of the extra cost of shelling out for an extra year so less than half come this way.
This route tends to attract very wealthy Indians with poor grades who cannot even get into mediocre Indian universities and want to go to a Russell Group university. The problem is UK universities have to survive and domestic student fees are capped.”
UK’s Department of Education also opened an investigation into these claims soon after the investigation came out.
Image Credits: Google Images
Feature image designed by Saudamini Seth
Sources: Firstpost, BBC, The Guardian
Find the blogger: @chirali_08
This post is tagged under: UK Colleges, Russell Group universities, Sunday Times, Sunday Times investigation, Sunday Times back door, Sunday Times recruitment, admissions standards, Universities UK, international students, international students uk, foundation courses, academic requirements, higher education, students, universities, UK universities
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