The brilliant students the UK doesn’t want

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:08Today, the students banned from studying in Britain.

0:18I am Shahida Sadat, a software engineer from Afghanistan. I am 26 years old and I am from Takhor province. Ever since she was a teenager, Shahira was obsessed with tech. Technology is barrier-breaking, so that's why I chose to get my degree in software engineering and computer science. She was in her final year of a degree in software engineering at Kabul University when the Taliban took over. That was in the summer of 2021. It was my last year at university. And the day that Taliban took control of Afghanistan, I was at university's hostel. And it was really a moment that I can't forget. The moment that I felt that we lost everything, that we won't be able to continue education or to finish and complete our degree.

1:16At that moment, I was crying, seeing each of my roommates. and I knew that I won't be able to see them again. So the moment I left the university, I was really hopeless. Against the odds, Shahira managed to complete her undergraduate degree and hoped to begin a master's. But with the Taliban in charge, there was no chance. So it's very difficult in Afghanistan for Afghan women to study. They cannot continue their education after the sixth grade of school and universities are closed towards us. So it's very challenging. It's very difficult to keep ourselves motivated and to continue education. For the last five years, she has refused to give up her dream.

2:07And last month, after applying to study AI at University College London, she got an interview for a Chevening Scholarship, a prestigious UK government programme which offers fully funded masters to the world's future leaders. So I applied to the Chevening Scholarship and my first choice was University College London, Masters of Machine Learning. And I chose this because Afghanistan really needs advanced knowledge and technology, especially in artificial intelligence, because currently we need it most. So we can remove these barriers that we have on women and youth on Afghanistan. She was thrilled to get a shot at the scholarship.

2:49My interview was scheduled on 9th of March, but on 4th of March, I got the email that they have cancelled the checketing for Afghan nationals. Shahira became the latest casualty in the UK's immigration clampdown after the government announced an emergency break on study visas from Afghanistan and three other countries, Sudan, Myanmar and Cameroon. In the end, UCL offered Shahira a place, but with no visa, she can't take it. But why has the government singled out these four countries? And what does it hope to achieve by barring some of the brightest students from some of the toughest backgrounds?

3:31From The Guardian, I'm Helen Pidd. Today in Focus, the curious logic of the Home Office's student visa ban.

3:43My name is Afra Al Mahdi and I'm 29 years old Another student affected by the visa ban is Afra who grew up in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan Even as a toddler, she was a bit of a prodigy starting primary school early One of our neighbours, she was a teacher, visited us and she suggested to my mum that I could start going to her school just as a listener, like informally. So then exams came and I taught my class. It was a surprise to the whole school. Afra ended up in the best secondary school in her district and she aced her exams. I exiled in the National Unified exams as well and that just paved my way and I was able to earn my seat at the best dental college in Sudan at the University of Hurtam.

4:36Sounds like you were a child genius. And how old were you when you got into this prestigious dental school? I think it was 15, maybe. Really?

4:53Afra's university years were not plain sailing. It was a time in Sudan of great unrest and protests. Because of the political activism at the university, our academic years were interrupted several times. However, I completed my undergraduate degree and my research project was ranked among the top five of my cohort. Five months later, I passed the first part of the Royal College of Surgeons membership. Tell me, why were you interested in dentistry? Specifically, I was just interested in the head and neck area. generally, and to be oral and exophasial surgeon, because that was my passion. This is where I want to serve my people and humanity as well.

5:41And you have to get a double qualification. You have to do a degree in medicine and a bachelor degree in antisergery. But I wanted to extend my academic background in cancer specifically. Afra tells me she became interested in oncology when she did her placement year. And she saw the cost of patients of late cancer diagnoses, which she says happened far too frequently in Sudan. And so she decided to study abroad, to learn new skills to one day take back home. And then in 2023, civil war broke out. Afra had to flee Khartoum, one of 14 million Sudanese people displaced by the war, a conflict that has killed at least 150 ,000 people.

6:26After 10 difficult months, she managed to move to the UAE, leaving behind some of her family, including her brother. And it was then that she decided to apply for a master's at Oxford in applied cancer science. I think Oxford was always a childhood dream. It's Oxford. So it wasn't something that just I decided later. No, Oxford was always a childhood dream. when I received the interview in email or the shortlisting email I couldn't believe it and and I prepared for that interview as if it was the most important event of my life and truly it was I also read papers from the African context and I caught up the latest early detection clinical trials happening in Oxford I wanted to be ready and I was over prepared for the interview regarding the interview itself i genuinely enjoyed every second of it i made sure to reflect everything i had studied and everything i had witnessed in my clinical work i felt like i was the voice of those vulnerable patients and i took the responsibility very seriously and when the course director or any of the journalists come in with comments like i think this is a very good answer or this is a great answer I couldn't I couldn't believe it I felt like it was being offered the moon if you can see I still feel very grateful deeply grateful for that for living those moments

8:13so the interview went well and then was it in February that you were offered a place Yeah. And I remember when I saw the offering mail, when it popped into my inbox, I couldn't believe it. And I still remember when I told my father, he congratulated me and then lifted me up from the air. It was a moment that took me right back to my school days. I could see the pride in his eyes very clearly. She won a place. Of course she did. and then she applied for a scholarship for exceptional African students and she was waiting to hear if she'd been successful when the visa break was announced It's really hard to talk about this I felt like I felt like waking up to April 15th 2023 the first day of the war the same unpreparedness, the same level of uncertainty the same feeling that The ground had been pulled from my feet and there was like nothing I could do to stop it.

9:24I first saw the announcement when it popped up on my screen on Instagram. And I started the screen in disbelief. After that, I immediately shared it in the WhatsApp group with the other Sudanese offer holders at Oxford. As you know, the first stage of grief is denial. So some of them just kept saying there will be an exception for this year. Let's just wait for the official statement tomorrow. And when the official statement came, it was just clear, a generalized plant and just policy with no exceptions.

10:15I think it's important if somebody has come to study, they come to study. And once their study period is finished, they leave. The study route into this country is not the same as an asylum route into this country. And I think that when you have... So Rajiv Seel, you are the Home Affairs Editor of The Guardian, and you've been following this so-called visa break that the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, has implemented as of last week. And she's targeting particularly students from four countries, Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar and Sudan. And can you just explain what is this break?

10:46Rajeev Syal:What has happened is the government has announced at very short notice a few weeks ago that they were going to suspend for 18 months visas going to four specific countries. And they say that the reason they're doing this is that there's been a big increase in the numbers and the percentages of the people who apply for student visas from those countries who then go on to apply for asylum and refugee status and to remain in the UK. When you have abuse of legal routes into this country that then convert into asylum claims, you're essentially running a legal migration system that is essentially an asylum system.

11:29And I do think that it's important that we follow the rules properly and we have separation between those two.

11:33Rajeev Syal:The Home Office has put out these statements saying there's been a 330 % overall increase since 2011 in two countries and more than 400 % increase across the four countries over a six-year period. Those figures have been questioned by opposition groups. And there's no exceptions at all, even for the most brilliant scholars? There is no exception, no. And this is very much in the mode that Shabana Mahmood, Home Secretary, has tried to put across that the government is going to be tough, there will be no exceptions, and that when they bring in rules, they mean them. this is there to play to a certain section of the electorate who are particularly worried about immigration and if when you talk to government advisors about this what they say is that the only polling that's been done on this issue shows that even green and labour voters are very very supportive of the hardline policies that Labour put forward in November which included a clampdown on abuse of the student visa system as they see it.

12:52Right okay and does it make sense to you if you look at the statistics why she has singled out these four countries?

12:59Rajeev Syal:Opponents say the government's claim of visa exploitation are a distortion given that out of a total of around 110 ,000 asylum claims, just 120 Sudanese students applied for asylum in the year up to September, 550 Afghan nationals, 180 people from Cameroon and 330 from Myanmar. So while the percentage increase might look huge, 330 % or 400 % increases as it's been pushed by the government, the actual numbers are relatively tiny and should we really be surprised that in places such as Sudan and Afghanistan that actually those countries will see changes in the rate of people applying for asylum given the incredibly difficult position for people particularly people who are educated who come from those countries, who have been at times targeted by militias and by the government as it is now in Afghanistan.

14:09Yeah, and these might be people who came here perfectly legitimately. The situation back home changes. Yes. And because of their background or their gender, perhaps in the case of Afghanistan, they simply feel that it's not safe.

14:20Rajeev Syal:Exactly. Right. And let's talk about some numbers. because while the government has been clamping down on scholars from Afghanistan, Myanmar, Cameroon and Sudan, those four countries are actually not at the top of the list, are they, for students who go on to claim asylum? When I was preparing for this interview, I was looking up the Home Office's latest statistics and top of the list is Pakistan, followed by Bangladesh, India and Nigeria. So the four countries the Home Office is targeting are nowhere near the top of the list. They're not on the list. That's been a point that's been made by some of the claimants who have been told they can't come here, have launched a case and they are planning on taking the UK government to court over this, pointing out the fact that Pakistan, for example, has so many thousands more people who come to the UK apparently to study but then do apply for asylum.

15:14So I'm interested to hear, what is your theory about why the Home Office has chosen these four countries in particular?

15:21Rajeev Syal:I think there's a concern, particularly over Afghanistan and Sudan, that there has been a rise in claims in general from those countries. Yeah, unsurprising given the Taliban takeover and the sort of bloody civil war. But the government has pledged to clamp down on the number of claims that they allow through. They are very conscious of the fact they want to control the numbers of people coming from countries which are associated with illegal or unauthorised migration in small boats. Two of the countries that do provide large numbers of unauthorised migrants on small boats are Sudan and Afghanistan.

16:14Right. Well, but then why target the students? The tiny number of exceptional scholars who have received places at UK universities. The anger that you talked about at the start of our conversation from the public, from Labour voters and even Green voters, feeling that the immigration system doesn't work, that it's unfair that people are cheating the system. Does that really apply to these potential master's students?

16:36Rajeev Syal:No, but politicians end up playing a kind of numbers game where it's just about the general figures. Really what this government wants to do is come a general election, be able to say we have driven the numbers of people coming to the UK down and they want to be able to do that in every means possible.

17:06And we have learned, I mean, through the years of the war, that even when we are victims, we cannot afford victimizing ourselves. So that's why we started challenging this policy. As Rajiv mentioned, some students are taking the Home Office to court, including Shahira, the Afghan software engineer we heard from at the start. And Afra, the Sudanese dentist and aspiring surgeon, well, she's lobbying anyone who she thinks could help. I called for a meeting with the other affected students with the Sudanese opera holders at Oxford. And there was another group of Sudanese diaspora that they are residents in the UK.

17:47And they offered to write a petition to the UK parliament. And they did start reaching out to UK press. We did a couple of interviews with some journals and media journals. and I wrote a draft to send it to some of the new MPs. Oh, really? Did you write to Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary? This is her policy. Actually, the Oxford University Sudanese Society did that. They submitted a legal letter to the Home Office, but we contacted the MB analyst, which is the MB for Oxford East. and I received an email from her office and it was a positive one. Okay, and do you feel optimistic that the decision might be reversed?

18:43Actually, I don't know how to say it but I always prefer to hope for the best while getting prepared for the worst. It's a very hard life lesson but I have learned it.

19:09And you know the government is justifying this visa break by saying, you know, listen, there has been a real spike in study visa applications from these four countries, including Sudan. And they're suggesting that there has been abuse of those visas because they say a disproportionate number of students from those countries come to the UK to study and then they claim asylum. But Rajiv Sayal, our Home Affairs editor, has pointed out that the actual numbers of these students are incredibly small. So why do you think that they are picking on you guys? I'm not quite sure about reason, but I think maybe because the increase in the overall or the Sudanese students that claim asylum increased recently.

19:50But that's the direct consequence of Sudan's war. And it's worth mentioning that now this war is described by United Nations as the world's largest displacement crisis with over 13 million people forced to flee their homes. Yeah, it's shocking statistics, isn't it? So in some ways, it's not surprising that a small number of the students would think, do you know what, I can't go back home. Maybe they don't have a home anymore. It's simply unsafe. And that's why people are putting in asylum applications. It's not maybe not something that they planned in advance, but the situation has changed perhaps since they started their study in the UK.

20:30Exactly, exactly. And I think there was no shame in claiming asylum while surviving or after surviving a war. And this is just basic human rights and recognised by all international humanitarian law. Those people are not system abusers. They are just war survivors and they are seeking safer option. Coming up, why blocking students won't stop the boats.

21:11Chicago, 2011. A cop is murdered. Police and prosecutors swear they have the trigger man. He swears he didn't do it. How far will each side go to prove they're right? Like it's just one bombshell after another. You know, you're like, what? What? The story of a PlayStation, a brain-eating amoeba, and the relentless pursuit of justice. Off-duty, out now. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. What do you think the UK will lose by not having students like you study in the UK? To answer this question, I would prefer to start with the fact that in the official statement, the government points to the cost of asylum accommodation.

21:56But this argument conflates asylum seekers already in the system with prospective students who have not yet arrived. The international students are paying 40 ,000 sterling pound tuition fees, contributing to 37.4 billion net gain that international students bring to the UK economy. So they are not a cost, they are actually an investment. Another thing that was worth mentioning is the fact that someone with the potential and ambition that actually led them to secure an offer or to have a place in the UK leading universities would not be okay with relying on government subsidies. Those people, they would definitely be well positioned to convert to a skilled worker visa or global talent visa, becoming tax payers themselves.

22:49I have to mention something specifically related to the Sudanese people, because when we look at the Sudanese context specifically, this policy does not simply block students. It actively blocks Sudanese leaders in their fields. Because the majority of Sudanese students are not self-funded. They secure funding after meeting the criteria of highly competitive scholarships. often with a contract that clearly sets a condition to return to their home countries and contribute its rebuilding. I think it's also worth mentioning that when it comes to the statistics of the home office itself, it shows that 87 % of Sudanese asylum claimants arrived via small boat, not student visa.

23:36Blocking the student's route will not stop the boats. It will only ensure the Sudanese professionals best place to rebuild their country and address the conditions that drive a 7 % of Sudanese asylum seekers to take those dangerous journeys that are kept out of the United Kingdom, leaving the root causes of the illegal immigration untouched and completely under address. It's sort of insulting, isn't it, treating you all as if your only goal is to kind of hoodwink the Home Office, to come on a false pretense of wanting to study just so that you can then claim asylum. To be clear, there is absolutely no shame in claiming asylum after surviving a war.

24:14That's just a basic human right. But we are clinicians, we are researchers, and we do have our own contributions to science and to education. We have maintained our role to develop and to learn, develop personally and professionally, and to serve throughout the worst humanitarian crisis of our time. and in fact we carry our Sudanese and African identities with pride, with honour and with deep commitment. Afra, it's been such a privilege to talk to you. I wish you all the very best. We'll be crossing our fingers for you. Actually, I'm the honoured one and really thankful. That was Afra Elmadi. My thanks to her and also to Shahira Sadat.

24:55Both of them were originally interviewed by my colleague Diane Taylor, who does fantastic work on the UK's asylum and refugee system. thanks too to Rajiv Seyal, our Home Affairs Editor. And that is all for today. This episode was produced by Sundar Sabdi, Eleanor Biggs and Hannah Adden and presented by me, Helen Pidd. Sound design was by Brian McNamara and the executive producer was Sammy Kent. We'll be back in your feeds later today with the latest.

25:33This is The Guardian.