Exiling excellence

With the General Election scheduled for May, politicians are furiously creating vote-winning policies and giving little thought to those policies’ consequences.

A good example of this came in December, when it was reported that the Conservative Party’s next manifesto would include plans to send non-EU students home immediately after graduating.

Theresa May’s policy was just an absolute example of slamming the doors completely shut

EEF’s Verity O’Keefe

Home Secretary Theresa May championed this change in policy, which was immediately met with fierce criticism from industry.

Industrial designer and inventor James Dyson called the Home Secretary’s proposal “a bit short-sighted” in a column he wrote for The Guardian during January.

Dyson suggested that the proposal would be akin to a “train ‘em up, kick ‘em out” approach, calling it “a short-term vote winner that leads to long-term economic decline”.

Dyson was not alone in his disdain.

University of the West of England vice chancellor Steve West said that politicians, like Theresa May, are currently rushing to make themselves heard by setting out various proposals that they want to see in party manifestos.

“We can guess why the Home Secretary has made this suggestion, not least that several senior Tories are holding fast to their 2010 pledge on cutting net migration to tens of thousands,” said West.

“[However], her proposal appears to have been brought down by ‘friendly fire’ from colleagues in her own party.”

Just three weeks after May’s proposal was announced, Chancellor George Osborne told reporters that it would not be included in the Conservative manifesto for the General Election, and that the current arrangements would remain in place.

Currently non-EU students are given a window of four months after graduation in which they must find a job in the UK, or otherwise leave the country.

They used to have much longer – two years – until the scheme, called the Post-Study Work Route, was dramatically reduced to its current four-month window by the Coalition government when it came into power in 2010.

“That was a huge shock to UK industry,” says Verity O’Keefe, employment and skills policy adviser at manufacturing trade body EEF.

“The government claimed it changed the policy because the system was being abused. However, we not only need to train the talent, we need to retain the talent as well.”

O’Keefe says that the government must offer international students, who study here and pay “significant” tuition fees, an exceptional amount of time to seek employment.

She also says smaller companies rely on extended visas to complete lengthy application processes.

Some companies manage, but others find the process more difficult, O’Keefe says.

She says there are those companies with large human resources departments, immigration lawyers and the necessary sponsorship licences needed to get an international student on their books before their four months expires.

Then you have the other group of companies that have to complete the application processes almost single-handedly, O’Keefe says.

“For a small company, completing the application process within four months is a real challenge,” she says.

O’Keefe admits that increasing the Post-Study Work Route to 12 months would be a good compromise but suggests this could still dissuade international students from studying in the UK.

Unfortunately, securing a more reasonable post-study work visa is only one piece of the puzzle.

More lenient policy must also be aligned with better communication, according to O’Keefe.

She says that industry leaders must apply more pressure on government to ensure policies work in their favour.

“I think industry has a big role to play and we need to be more vocal on these issues and really tell the story about how current policies impact businesses and the wider business areas,” O’Keefe says.

“Companies cannot grow or invest if they can’t get the skills they need.”

For O’Keefe, government policy must be about opening the doors for international graduates.

If government wants to harness the skills of international students, it is in their favour to take more action

IET’s Stephanie Fernandes

“Theresa May’s policy was just an absolute example of slamming the doors completely shut, and that’s why industry stepped up and has not stood for it,” she says.

But industry has not really got what it wants.

The current Post-Study Work Route still makes it extremely difficult for non-EU graduates to secure jobs in the UK before being sent home.

“Something the government could consider is making the work route visa more heavily focused on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) graduates…as that’s where the shortages are,” O’Keefe says.

Stephanie Fernandes, principal policy advisor, education and skills at The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) agrees, suggesting that post-study work visas should be more flexible.

“If government wants to harness the skills of international students, it is in their favour to take more action to make sure policies reflect the needs of industry,” she says.

However, Fernandes says that it is not the government’s job alone.

“I don’t think industry has been vocal enough across the board,” she says.

“It is all well and good government putting policies in place but government can’t solve the skills issues on its own. It has to come from all parties, educators and industry all working for the same goal.”