Red herrings and scapegoats
The AWOL Internationals: an issue blown well out of proportion?
The recently disclosed disappearance of 42 international students from the York campus has provided a crucial insight into the stock method of apportioning blame in crises such as this. The pattern is increasingly familiar. First and foremost, students are immediately absolved of all blame for whatever went wrong. Accountability is dealt out in broad strokes, both to the government and the University authorities.
The University has limited PR capabilities and has so far wisely decided to hold its peace. But the government – in this case the local government and, more specifically, Cllr Ceredig Jamieson-Ball, recently returned to his Heslington ward with a significant majority – is quicker on the draw.
In this instance, Jamieson-Ball has deftly shifted all responsibility onto weaker shoulders, claiming it is ‘imperative’ that overseas students receive a proper level of support from the University. I do not want to paint the University authorities as helpless victims in this, but it must be obvious that it is not necessarily they who bear the entire responsiblity for the disappearance of these students.
All in all there seem to be three main problems. The first plays out like a detective drama: the students have gone AWOL, and no-one is quite sure where they are now. This is in fact an enormous red herring. Why exactly ought we to be concerned about their present whereabouts? Perhaps because their student visas do not permit them, having discontinued their studies at the University, to remain in the country? But then surely if they are breaking the law, that must be a Home Office matter, and not the University’s responsibility. Most likely (why not go with the simplest explanation – after all, ‘entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity’) is that they have all legally returned to their native countries.
If some or all of them have remained in the UK, we arrive at the second perceived problem: that the country is being overrun by an army of self-serving economic migrants! This is a little difficult to swallow when one considers the hefty fees incumbent on non-EU overseas students. If the students have coughed up these fees, voluntarily dropped out of education and then remained in the country (albeit in breach of immigration laws), there is still no reason to assume that they are not making a valid contribution to the economy by earning their keep elsewhere.
Problem number three: perhaps these students disappeared on account of their struggle successfully to integrate into the social life of the University. A problem, admittedly. Imperative, as Ceredig would say. But whose imperative is it to remedy this problem? Can anyone really deny that the University upholds its end of the bargain with a multitude of social provisions and welfare support staff?
The idea of a problem without blame must be difficult to fathom for some, but that is all this really amounts to. Britain offers residency to foreign students in exchange for increased fees and the obvious economic returns inherent in educating a foreign labour force. It’s the Government’s job to administrate immigration. It’s the University’s job to educate students, immigrant or otherwise. So far, help has arrived in the form of an intemperate blame-fest. History ought to have taught us that witch-hunts do not solve problems: they obfuscate the potential for real solutions, and instead create a menagerie of red herrings and scapegoats to make sure that finding them is all but impossible.
So let me be absolutely frank: there isn’t really a problem, and if there is, it can’t be taken to be the fault of any one party in particular. Most enrolled overseas students are still with us. If anyone feels like launching a vigilante action-wagon, such as hunting the missing students down and delivering them a hefty slap on the wrist for dropping out without notifying the proper authorities, you may do as you please. For my part, I plan to join the overwhelming majority of York students in failing to worry about international students using York as an unorthodox asylum loophole. Instead, I’ll be enjoying the warm weather and getting on with my life.
James MacDougald
Correction: Ceredig Jamieson-Ball does not in fact hold a majority, though his lead was substantial - a comfortable 170 votes ahead of the runner-up Green candidate. Apologies for error and any consequent confusion.
rinky stingpiece
Clearly on a local level, there isn’t much a problem, except with the slack admin staff perhaps; but this minor problem in York, appears to be a major problem nationwide:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6624019.stm
nick a penny here; a penny there, nobody notices… nick a penny everywhere, and you’ve made a tidy sum.
There’ll always be some who’ll try and get away with whatever they can; the real issue here is the messed up student finance system since being centralised in Darlington… NOW THAT’S A BLOODY SCANDAL - THE SORT THAT NOUSE-NUS OUGHT TO BE FOCUSSING ON!
(not the jumping record of phantom fascists).
Ceredig Jamieson-Ball
To suggest that all I did was to somehow ‘blame’ the University for the disappearances is rather wide of the mark.
When asked, by a rival campus newspaper, about my thoughts on what steps could be taken to improve life for overseas students in a general sense, I did question (not criticise) how much support is given to overseas students and economic migrants more generally. And this wasn’t aimed at the University- it was a point of consideration really for local authorities, central government and other organisations- particularly those, like the University, who directly recruit professionals or students from overseas.
For instance- one of the things I would question, is how much and what sort of support is available to partners, spouses and the families of students. The overseas students themselves will instinctively have better support mechanisms simply by virtue of being attached to an academic department. But what of any family members that come with them? From my own experience, I know that the local schools, and the University Nursery, all do a great job at supporting children of overseas students. There are a dozen or so languages spoken by children at St Lawrence’s Primary school, and Lord Deramore’s in Heslington uses the skills and experiences that the children and parents bring with them for the benefit of all the children in the school. But just because I know that these are good, doesn’t mean we should sit back and stop trying to improve things.
The type and nature of support afforded to overseas students is clearly only marginally, if at all, related to the 42 students who have apparently disappeared. But then I was answering a much more general question. So, far from ‘deftly shifting responsibility onto weaker shoulders’ I was giving my thoughts on a much broader issue.
Indeed, on the very specific issue of the 42 ‘missing students’ I made a very similar point to that contained in the final paragraph of this article.
rinky stingpiece
there shouldn’t be any support for economic migrants - by definition, they should have passed a suitability test to be able to function in this country without support, otherwise what’s the point in having an immigration system at all?
It’s circular reasoning to say that economic migrants come in to fill positions that they’re qualifed for entry into the country for; then (despite that qualification) becauase they can’t function they need support (cultural, linguistic); therefore you create positions to support them that require economic migrants to fill such positions.
This is a policy of the self-fulfilling prophecy.