New visa rules won't impact genuine students: UK envoy

PUNE: On a one-day visit to Pune last week, British High Commissioner in India, Richard Stagg, spoke to TOI on bilateral relations, including concern over the United Kingdom's new immigration policy and its impact on students' visas and jobs. "The new (visa) rules are aimed at curbing entry to the UK for those students who are after low-end courses. The rules will not impact genuine students going to universities and colleges in the UK," he said. Stagg, who was on his fourth visit to Pune, was impressed by the city's rapid transformation. Excerpts from the exclusive interview. Q: How do you assess Pune's transformation as aninvestment destination?A: The city seems to get bigger and busierevery time I come back. The scale of new buildings, new campuses are remarkableand I believe it is a continuing trend. Companies like HSBC are here, above all,because of the educational quality the city has to offer. The trajectory ofattracting an increasing number of high-end employers will continue.Obviously, there is a challenge for the (Pune municipal) corporationto keep the infrastructure of the city progressing at the same speed at whichthe city's businesses are moving. Pune has grown rapidly in the last 15 years.What hasn't changed is people's big appetite to do more to take the cityupwards. The education strength seems to be sustaining this growth.As I see, the two main impediments to India's growth areinfrastructure and skills. The infrastructure challenge is in Pune as it is inmost places. On the skills side, the city is still producing high qualitygraduates. This provides good prospects of growth. Q: Your views onthe UK's engagement with a known education hub like PuneA: We thinkwe are very well placed to be a partner to India in overall terms and inspecifics of Pune/Maharashtra. This is mainly because our higher educationsystem is very similar to India's. We have a system which is largely publicsector. Although, we feel there is an exaggerated worry in India, that if theyallow foreign education providers (FEPs), they will make money quickly at theexpense of Indian students. Most public funded universities in the UK are notmoney-making institutes. We are positioned quite well in terms ofrelations between research and business. The UK has quite a good balance wheremost universities produce a degree of research done tailor-made for business.The UK government spends $ 4 to 5 billion a year on research in universities andthat fits well with the Indian government's interests vis-a-vis collaborationsand joint research. Q: How would you assess the ongoing reforms inIndian higher education vis-a-vis FEPs ?A: It is for the governmentof India to determine the pace of reforms but, given the ambition to changethings on a very rapid scale, which is being articulated by India's seniorministers, there is a need for shaping a transparent regulatory and legalenvironment at a reasonably rapid pace. India has set an ambitious programme ofestablishing a large number of universities and institutions including theinnovation universities, and a skill development programme by 2022. It is notrealistic to expect an organic growth. There is a real opportunity fortransformation if they can strike a sensible balance between India's interestand that of the FEPs. Q: The UK's minister for science and educationDavid Willets has acknowledged the need for greater two-way flow of studentsbetween India and the UK. How do you see this happening?A: There aretwo main routes to achieve this. We feel more British students coming to Indiawill be good in terms of having a richer mix of students, who have anunderstanding of how India works, the Indian approach to life and how businessis done in India. The first route is to get UK universities to sendtheir undergraduate students to Indian universities for studying a part of theircourse. The challenge for the UK government is that the universities are highlyautonomous and have their own resources to decide on such opportunities. What weneed is a measure of advocacy to see that such initiatives take place.The second route is getting Indian and UK universities set up jointschools or institutions with campuses, buildings and faculties in India. Thisrequires the Indian government to be more open. Much would depend on whatlegislation the government finally produces vis-a-vis the road for FEPs and howeducation is regulated. For now, there are all sorts of crossoverswith regards to the regulatory environment. We expect our institutions to besubjected to the same rules as that for Indian institutions in general. However,for brand conscious universities in the UK, they have to be fully confidentabout their association and ought to have a clear idea about issues like who isin charge of the curriculum, who is in charge of faculty selection, studentselection etc. Q: The UK government's tightening of immigrationrules including reduction in student visas for non-EU applicants has raisedconcerns relating to education and jobs in the UK. A: One has toview this in context with the present UK government's commitment when it wentinto elections. There were issues as to what the government would do aboutimmigration. I think there is no easy or perfect way to tackle such matters.However, in terms of education, what we have found is that we weregetting a lot of people coming to the UK for very low-end courses, which did notmake any economic sense. I mean, either they were being foolish to waste theirmoney, which is bad, or were going to get work in the UK. That too is illegaland bad. In 2008, we issued 20,000 students visas and the numbersrose to 57,000 visas in 2009 before coming back to 30,000 visas in 2010. In2009, we had changed the rules a bit and found out that we got it wrong.With the new immigration rules, we believe we will continue to getcomfortable numbers, may be rising number of genuine students going touniversities and colleges and that seems to be happening. As forjobs, we have excluded intra-company transfers, which, otherwise, fitted more inthe interest of the software companies. Now, we are doing it on more specificterms. Yet, there is no evidence so far to show that the changes would affectanyone. In fact, the number of visa applications we received inApril/May this year is 20% more than the applications received in April/May lastyear. We are facing complaints that visas are not being issued as fast as theywould like. We have had a consultation exercise on this with the Indiangovernment but there is no evidence as of now to show any signs of demand/supplyissue. Q: How do you see the India-UK relations progressing?A: The picture is pretty positive. There is a government that hasgiven special place to India in its plans. Prime Minister David Cameron's visit(in July 2010) and the ensuing joint initiatives show this.Counter-terrorism initiatives are a good example of this. The Indiangovernment will be proud of what they achieved in terms of running a safe andsuccessful Commonwealth Games 2010 despite lots of background noise. We believewe have contributed in a range of way to that success both on the intelligenceand practical policing aspect. We are looking to take this forward to a morelong-term strategic planning rather than being a one-off effort. We areinterested in context of the London Olympics, next year.Counter-piracy and freedom of movement in the Indian Ocean are goingto be two other crucial issues. Both, India and the UK, rely heavily on hydrocarbon imports from West Asia. It is in our interest to see that the sea linksare kept open. The scourge of piracy emerging from Somalia and East Africa alsoneeds to be tackled. We are working closely on this. On the militaryfront, the armed forces from both the countries share very good relations.Recently, we had a joint counter insurgency exercise, which is crucial given ourcommitment in Afghanistan. Both, the UK and India are keen on having anAfghanistan that is reasonably stable, reasonably democratic and well-governed.Q: How do you assess the UK's engagement with Pakistan in thecontext of the global war against terrorism and the attacks on India originatingfrom across the border?A: In our case, we have never been involvedin the supply of large- scale military equipment to Pakistan. The main UKengagement with Pakistan army is in what we call the COINT i.e. counterinsurgency training, which is very much aligned with India's interest.Pakistan's significance in finding a long-term solution to the Afghan problemalso needs to be viewed in context of the areas along the Durand line that run amajor risk of being safe haven for terrorists and insurgents.