Imagine there is a vein of pure gold buried in rocks somewhere in Scotland that everyone knows about but nobody makes any attempt to exploit. Inconceivable? In this instance, we are talking about some of the most exceptionally talented and well-motivated young people in the country today. By any objective standards they have beaten overwhelming odds. Typically, they will have arrived here relatively recently with, at best, a sketchy knowledge of English. Not content to master our language at a speed that would put most of us to shame, they have gone on to work their way to the top of the class and emerged from school with an impressive set of certificates. But, while their contemporaries head off to university, they are faced with an academic brick wall. These are Scotland's young asylum seekers.
There is a puzzling anomaly at the heart of educational policy as it applies to asylum seekers. They are educated in our schools and are treated as "home students", eligible for grants and loans if they go on to part-time courses in further education colleges. But if they qualify for a university place, they are treated as "overseas students", charged around £10,000 a year (much more for courses such as medicine) and barred from access to student loans. This adds insult to injury as they are also unable to work to finance their studies. The result is that outstanding students, who would hold their own with ease in our top universities, are forced to downplay their ambitions and settle for college courses.
The automatic treatment of all asylum seekers as home students in the higher education system may risk creating perverse incentives to breach immigration regulations. However, there is an unacceptably wide gap between automatic home student status for all and the tiny handful of scholarships currently offered to the highest-achieving asylum seekers from Scottish universities. As things stand, of the 17 asylum seekers offered places at Scottish universities this year, only three or four are likely receive financial backing.
This issue is too important to leave to the goodwill of hard-pressed universities. If the Scottish Funding Council were to allow for, say, 20 of these youngsters to be treated as home students, the public investment would be amply repaid in the contribution to society these elite students stand to make in the future. There is an especially compelling argument for Scotland taking an enlightened stance on this issue on account of the looming skills gap, particularly in science and IT. The current system not only fails a deserving group of students but represents an appalling waste of talent. It also appears to breach the UN Declaration of Human Rights. Article 26 declares: "Higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit."
This situation would not arise if Britain possessed a coherent asylum and immigration policy that delivered decisions on asylum that were swift and fair. The present system merely perpetuates existing social inequalities. For the past three decades Britain's universities, especially the science and technology base, have been highly dependent on academically gifted immigrants. It is unfair and illogical to ignore the vein of gold right under our noses.
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