International Higher Education Students Debate
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Lord Storey
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International Higher Education Students
Lord Storey Excerpts(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Barran (Con)
I really do not recognise what the noble Lord is saying. In 2019, we had 496,000 international students coming to this country; last year, there were 679,000. We have introduced a graduate route, which allows international students who are graduates to work in this country. We have increased our educational exports from this area from £19 billion to £25.6 billion and are heading to our target of £35 billion.
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that we should have a diverse international student population in our universities, and is she not concerned that, of the 590,000 non-EU students, those from China, India and Nigeria dominate? Is she concerned about the 120,000 Chinese students and maybe their effect on security?
Baroness Barran (Con)
The Government absolutely agree that we need a diverse population of international students. The noble Lord mentions India and Nigeria; those were two of the countries that were specifically targeted in our International Education Strategy, and we are delighted to see how successful it has been.