The Kent Union Vice-president has sent out a message regarding planned changes to international student visas that concerns all University of Kent students. The entire message is reproduced after the jump.
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Please read this email. It means a lot to me and is taking a lot of my time, but there is only so much one person can do. The regulations do not affect me directly, but that doesn’t mean I can’t oppose them. It would mean the world to me, and this University, if you contributed a minute of your time to this.
Tuesday 9th December I will be next to blackwells on campus (where the wednesday fruit and vegetable market is) campaigning with a larger group of people, and need as many people there as possible. Whether you dance, sing, act, beatbox, shout, it doesnt matter – as long as you draw attention to yourself. We need to collect more signatures. We will be giving out free stickers and refreshments.
The next day, Wednesday 10 December, we are going to London for a demonstration. The coach leaves Mandela in the morning, drops us off in London, picks us up at 4pm and we should be back on campus by 6.00 pm.
I’d like to inform you that I’m organising a campaign to protest against the new home office regulations. We aim to demonstrate in London on the 10th of December, and need as many people as possible to attend this.
Basically I’m collecting signatures (I’ve attached the forms in case you’re able to collect signatures within your society) in protest to the new regulations because the Home office is making it increasingly difficult for international students to study in England, and since our university is the “most international and European in England”, its going to have a massive effect on this university. If there are less international students (we contribute 60% of the universities income), then it may affect the amount of money invested in student facilities, etc, and in general a degree from this university could mean less in future. The reason I’m protesting against them is because i find them racist and discriminative, because when the home office says “international”, they automatically exclude the European union, and many new regulations focus mainly on middle-eastern countries and Muslim countries. In a nutshell, the regulations are:
1. all “international” students must have 20,000 pounds in their bank account before coming to the UK, or they wont be allowed in to study. This isn’t giving all students an equal chance to study, and makes it that much more difficult for people with underprivileged backgrounds to get a degree.
(In tier4 it states that students need to prove they can pay tuition fees (ranging from 9000 to 12 000 pounds), as well as support themselves through the year, at 9600 pounds. It’s fair enough they want students to be able to live comfortably, but its not fair that they reject applications from people that expect to receive money in monthly instalments from family and such)
2. all “educational institutions” (schools, universities, language programs, etc) will have to “spy” on “international” students. This university, for example, will have to report to the home office every three days with a DETAILED REPORT ON EACH INTERNATIONAL INDIVIDUAL, which I find an invasion of privacy. They will be monitoring our attendance at lectures, seminars, tutorials, and whether we hand assessments in on time, etc, and the home office will be able to read about each individual (from overseas) in detail, and be able to DEPORT them back to their home country, even after having fished 20,000 pounds out of their own pockets, just because they haven’t attended some seminars. All students should have the right to slack off. We pay for it. We all have the right to be sick, or have a lie-in, but now a hangover for some students could mean the end of their degree.
There are many more regulations which I am against, but I’m realising this email is getting rather long. Briefly, students from overseas studying a technological subject or scientific subject will have to be interrogated and fingerprinted and go through a panel, who then decided whether or not they are terrorists. This is a new measure to stop the delivery of “weapons of mass destruction”. Again, this does not apply to American or European students, and I’m thinking it’s fairly obvious what colour, ethnicity, religion, etc, of students it is that will increase their chances of having to go through this extra hassle.
It would be wonderful if we could work together, to collect signatures and take them to the Home Office on the 10th of December. There will be several coaches leaving our university and taking students to London. If you could sign the online petition, and forward the link on to your society members, or if you could print out the signature-collection forms and pass it round at the next social, that would be a great help. Also, if any of your members would like to join the demonstration on campus on the 9th of december (next Tuesday) that would be wicked, and it would be even better if they could come to London on Wednesday as well.
I feel very passionately about this issue, and it should not be overlooked.
Thankyou for reading, and please sign the petition, and encourage others to do the same, at:
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Overseasstudent/#detail
There are also facebook groups dedicated to this cause at:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=45960122151#/group.php?gid=34808231593&ref=mf
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=34808231593&ref=mf#/group.php?gid=95611125275&ref=ts
I look forward to hearing from you,
Lotty Brouwer
(International Student Officer)
Caz Brooker
Vice-President (Student Activities)
