Education: Overseas Students

Lord Tomlinson Excerpts

Wednesday 13th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, if you are to be required to have an English language qualification before you turn up, that obviously has to have been acquired somewhere else. A register has been built up of approved institutions, which have to demonstrate that they are both able and capable of providing the necessary qualification. They have to have a trading presence in this country and a reputation established independently of their application to government. If that is done, it is hoped that the qualifications will prove genuine. However, there is also monitoring of those institutions, whereby people go along and inspect whether they are still providing courses of the right level and whether the students are attending.

[Lord Tomlinson]

I go back to the question asked by my noble friend Lord Hunt about the number of institutions that are no longer in business compared with when the previous Government introduced the review that led to the points-based system. Will the Minister agree with me if I suggest that 2,000 colleges did not get the necessary level of accreditation ever to be put on the register, and that the number that she gave was for institutions that were accredited but have since been knocked off the register? Therefore, the total number of institutions that are not providing higher education services where they were previously is around 2,300. Does she further agree that it is imperative for the financial success of higher education that overseas students come to our higher education institutions, to part-mitigate the cuts that have been made in higher education and will be made in the spending review next week?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, I think that this Question is about English language qualifications for students arriving in this country. I found it difficult to follow the noble Lord’s logic. Many of the institutions that were operating without either the necessary qualifications or a licence were clearly being allowed to do so under the previous Government. I have said that we have suspended some of the institutions that were accredited, and I shall look at whether others have fallen out of the system. However, we are certainly applying extremely rigorous standards to the 2,000 or so institutions that are accredited as things stand at the moment.