Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent discussions she has had with (a) Universities UK and (b) UK universities on (i) diversifying international student recruitment and (ii) the potential risks arising from reliance on international students from a small number of countries.

The government appreciates the significant economic and cultural contribution that international students make to the UK’s higher education (HE) sector and their positive impact on our society as a whole. The department is proud to have met its international student recruitment ambition two years running by attracting 600,000 international students.

Ministers and officials regularly speak to the HE sector, including sector bodies such as Universities UK and HE providers, on a range of issues.

The government’s International Education Strategy makes clear that the internationalisation of the HE sector cannot come at any cost. A key element of that strategy is diversification. Universities must ensure they have appropriate processes in place to manage risks associated with dependence on a single source of funding, whether that is from a single organisation or a single country.

The Office for Students (OfS), the regulator of HE in England, monitors the risk of over-reliance on overseas income at a sector level. The role of the OfS is not to direct how HE providers manage themselves or to limit their recruitment from a particular country of origin, but to ensure they understand where there is greater reliance and how any risks are being managed, and to take action to protect students from the consequences of unmanaged financial risk, if necessary.