Overseas students ‘shouldn’t be blamed for institutional failings’

“Punitive media narratives” and being treated like “cash cows” are harming international students, with universities being urged to accept more of the blame for why new recruits might be ill equipped for academic or campus life.

Students being seen as “financial assets rather than pedagogic partners” frames the conditions they encounter when they arrive in the country, according to a study seeking to find ways to address these “structural issues”.

Workshops were held at four universities – De Montfort, Wolverhampton, Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan – in which staff repeatedly used the term “cash cows” – framing that was said to be “both accurate and deeply uncomfortable”.

“An institution that recruits students as a financial strategy and then tasks individual educators with the consequences of that strategy is producing a structural injustice, not a pedagogic problem,” the final report from the Collaborative Enhancement Project (CEP) concludes. 

Participants spoke of an attitude towards those coming to study from overseas as “lacking language proficiency” and “lacking familiarity with UK academic conventions” and outlined a need for “dedicated support” for working with diverse cohorts.

But the research, funded by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education and published on 3 August, suggests that the blame for this “deficit” should not be placed on the students themselves.

“It may lie with the staff member who lacks understanding of the student’s educational history. It may lie with the institution that provides no or minimal dedicated professional development. It may lie with a curriculum that treats Eurocentric academic conventions as universal. It may lie with an assessment framework that was never designed with diverse or minoritised learners in mind,” says the report.

Reframing the narrative with this in mind is therefore central to the recommendations featured in a toolkit produced by the researchers that aims to ensure staff can better support international students, and encourages organisations to think of “belonging as a precondition” of a productive academic experience.

In one session at Wolverhampton, participants explored “the shocks” international students absorb before their very first seminar, such as navigating unfamiliar transport systems and adjusting to regional accents and dialects.

“Students arrive in week one already navigating jobs, visas, unfamiliar systems, and cultural adjustment, and are expected to form relationships, engage critically, and prepare for assessment simultaneously,” the study notes.

Hostile media narratives about migration and the “burden” international students place on domestic peers leaves them living in fear of doing anything to jeopardise their visa status, it says.

Co-authors Sumeya Loonat and Wendy Ramku, both academics at De Montfort, observe that international students often stay within social networks of people from their own country, attributing this to a dearth of institutional support: “The structures that would support integration are absent”.

Meanwhile, “institutional choices, not natural conditions” further alienate those arriving from abroad, who encounter class sizes too large for “individual recognition” and overstretched staff members.

Those who do feel left out or overlooked might encounter risks including deteriorating mental well-being and the inability to fully engage with their studies, the researchers warn.

Ultimately, the report identifies six key principles to promote “ethical and effective practice” on supporting international students, including suggesting that curricula are “informed” by their experience and perspectives.

“The duty of care towards international students does not begin at induction,” it cautions.

“It begins when recruitment promises are made. Institutions that recruit internationally carry an ethical obligation to resource the conditions in which students can genuinely thrive and succeed.”

georgia.luckhurst@timeshighereducation.com