Educators say Brexit would harm Britain, help Australia

Educators believe that leaving the EU would do great harm to Britain.

A pro-Brexit supporter at a rally in London … despite the groundswell in favour of leaving the EU, experts fear an isolated Britain will severely damage the education sector.

When Australian university leaders look at opinion polls showing that British voters may soon decide to leave the EU they see Britain preparing to shoot itself in the foot.

“The impact on their own ­university sector would be really severe and they would be surrendering some valuable advantages that they now enjoy over com­peting countries like us,” says Phil Honeywood, executive director of the International Education Association of Australia.

“It is hard to fathom why they would do it but if that is their choice then it is good luck for us,” says Mr Honeywood, who believes a “Leave the EU” vote in Britain’s June 23 referendum would give Australia a lucrative new stream of fee-paying Euro­pean students who would face with new visa restrictions and higher fees in Britain.

And British universities and policymakers agree entirely.

While opinion polls show that the British electorate is tightly divided on the issue there is an overwhelming view at the top of the British education sector that leaving the 28-member EU would be a massive act of self-harm.

The vice-chancellors of 132 British universities have unanimously opposed leaving the EU and not a single leader of the UK’s college or school associations has backed leaving.

“Leaving the EU and putting up barriers to work and study makes it more likely that Euro­pean students and researchers will choose to go elsewhere, strengthening our competitors and weakening the UK’s universities,” says Dame Julia Goodfellow, vice-chancellor of the University of Kent and president of Universities UK, the industry body representing British vice-chancellors and universities.

The ruling Conservative party is deeply split on EU membership, with prominent Tories such as the London Mayor Boris Johnson campaigning for a “Leave” vote but the Universities and Science Minister Jo Johnson — Boris’s brother — says leaving would be reckless.

“UK students benefit from their ability to study across the EU, while EU students generate billions for the UK economy, support thousands of jobs and enrich university life,” he says. “I share the clear view of my predecessors and the majority of university leaders that our world-class universities and our scientific prowess will be much better off inside the EU.”

The free movement across the EU of students, researchers and teachers means there are 125,000 EU students at British universities, representing 5 per cent of the total student body. Peak group UUK estimates those students generate £3.7 billion ($6.9bn) in economic activity and create 34,250 jobs, numbers which would certainly fall if Britain left the EU.

The growing number of EU ­nationals seeking an English-­language education would lose the support of the EU’s Erasmus mobility program and full access to British student loans, and would also face tougher visa checks and the higher tuition fees paid by non-EU students.

More than 200,000 British students and 20,000 staff have studied or worked abroad under the Erasmus + exchange program since 1987. Some 3500 British researchers have also had EU support to work abroad.

On top of that, 15 per cent of academic staff teaching and researching at British universities are from elsewhere in the EU.

UUK says British universities would lose a massive competitive advantage by sacrificing the disproportionate share of research funds they receive from the EU. Only The Netherlands wins more on a per capita basis among the 28 EU members, and Britain receives about £1.40 for every £1 it puts into EU research funding. Academics say the benefits of collaborating more easily with other EU nations to share ideas, datasets and other resources is even more valuable than the £1.2bn a year Britain receives in EU research funds.

One of the most outspoken vice-chancellors, Cambridge University’s Leszek Borysiewicz, says it would be “complete idiocy” for Britain to undermine that collaboration and abandon its current position of leadership in EU higher education. “The real loss is that we would not be able to collaborate in the way we do today,” he says. “We’d become an irrelevance in so many fields. You can’t think you will stand alone and retain the leadership that we have.”

Cambridge would even be forced to open science parks on the Continent to retain its share of the jobs and opportunities created by EU-funded research.

“We’re in a global market, and in a global competition for talent. While the UK outside of the EU might continue to have world-leading universities and research facilities, our capacity to attract that talent would be eroded,” Borysiewicz says.

The British government is among the lowest funders of research and higher education among developed countries as a percentage of GDP, and universities fear that Westminster would do little to make up for the loss of EU funds. Stephen Hawking and 150 other Fellows of the Royal Society have co-signed a letter warning that leaving the EU would be “a disaster for science”, noting that Switzerland’s research collaboration with other EU countries has been restricted and made more ex­pensive because it does not allow EU-style freedom of movement.

Christopher Leigh, a Liverpool-based astronomer and spokes­man for Scientists for Britain, a small group of academics opposed to EU membership, insists that scientific collaboration “is perfectly achievable without EU oversight”.

“Having been involved in national, multilateral and EU projects, I personally would try to avoid working through EU networks if I can, purely because of the mind-numbing bureaucracy involved,” says Dr Leigh, who has been involved in joint projects with Australia’s Faulkes Telescope Project. Conceding that a non-EU ­Britain would be competing for European students on “a more level playing field” with the US, Australia and Canada, Dr Leigh stressed that those countries have their own visa hurdles and the UK would continue to enjoy advantages in “travel costs and cultural links” with Europe.

“One would also hope that this level playing field would mean that UK universities would not be required to favour EU scientists over non-EU scientists, which would prove beneficial to scientists from the Commonwealth that seek to work in the UK,” he says.

Mr Honeywood agrees that ending the free access to Britain that is now enjoyed by EU citizens should make it easier for Australian academics to win positions at UK universities, which last year employed 29,250 EU citizens but only 1330 Australians on academic contracts.

“There would also be the prospect of enhanced collaboration between Australian and UK academic researchers if the British stepped out of the EU research structures,” Mr Honeywood says.

Lucy Shackleton, the EU campaign manager of Universities UK, says that if Britain did leave the EU its universities would be less attractive to Australian academics seeking jobs or collaboration. “Britain is now an English-speaking gateway to the EU for Australians because your students who come here as fulltime students get access to Erasmus and your researchers who come here get access to EU research funds,” she said.

Without the EU’s framework for collaboration, British researchers would face a massive increase in red tape each time they tried to organise a research project that might involve universities in more than a dozen countries, she said.

Our boarding schools may benefit from EU influx

A British departure from the EU could also mean more business for Australian boarding schools because of new visa restrictions for British schools, which now rely on EU countries for 6000 of their 75,000 students.

“Those (EU) students pay more than £100 million a year in fees and if they needed to get Tier Four visas like other foreign students it would mean a lot more administration and infrastructure for the schools and more expense and bother for their parents,” warns Robin Fletcher, the national director of the Boarding Schools Association.

“A lot of students who come to the UK are referred here by agents who suggest the most appropriate countries and schools, and if we made life harder for the agents and their customers they could just send them to other countries.

“That would place many of our members at a competitive disadvantage and have a profound impact on the viability of some schools.”

British independent schools have been increasingly relying on foreign fee-paying students because of a fall in the number of UK paying students.

Stuart Higgins, a former academic at Melbourne’s RMIT University who is now principal of Saint Michael’s boarding school in Hereford, says erecting new visa barriers to EU students would be “catastrophic” for his school, which is owned by a Spain-based company and relies on the EU for up to 30 per cent of its 110 students.

“If Britain became less attractive to EU students because of new visas that might hurt the average boarding school enough to (make them) lay off one or two members of staff but it would be much more damaging for us because we really rely on those students.

“It is very frustrating. One of the things we are really good at in this country is education but if we put more barriers in people’s way then they will just head off to schools in Australia, Canada, or the US or wherever.

“I don’t know anyone running a British boarding school who thinks leaving the EU is a good idea.”