Seasonal satchels shoot: The ultimate quintessential look from The Cambridge Satchel Company
→ Part 2, p.8–9
www.tcs.cam.ac.uk
International student rules set to be eased Non-EU student numbers to increase by 55,000 Stevie Hertz News Editor
I
Winter getaways abroad: How to get out of Cambridge
Which Facebook fox sticker is your college?
→Part 2, p.6–7
→Features, p.10–11
The
03 December 2015 Vol. 17 Michaelmas Issue 9
nternational students may well be excluded from official migration figures, the chancellor George Osborne has hinted. This comes after the Autumn Statement in which the Treasury announced plans to increase student migration by 55,000 by 2020. It is believed that this move will add £1 billion to the UK economy. The government aims to reduce net annual immigration to under 100,000 by 2020. Osborne has said that “the public’s concern about migration is about permanent migration, it’s about people staying permanently or for many years in the country, and of course students come and go and I think that’s a good thing for the UK.” In August 2014, 59% of the public agreed that international student numbers should not be cut. In a move to attract more international students, the Autumn Statement also revealed that dependent relatives of postgraduate students would have the right to work in the UK. Osborne has also rejected proposals for tougher English language tests and to require students to have a certain amount of bank savings before they can enter. He has said that these schemes, proposed by the Home Office over the Summer, are not government policy and will not be implemented. The chancellor said: “I’m not aware there has been any agreement in the government or any hard and fast proposals like that. We are not advancing them.”
The college guide:
However, Osborne continues to support plans to shut down ‘bogus’ colleges and stop people abusing student visas to seek work. 13% of students in 2012/13 were from non-EU countries (deemed to be international). This is up 10% from five years earlier. They contribute £7 billion to the UK economy. On a global scale, 13% of all international students come to Britain. Restrictions on international students have increased in recent years, in attempts to lower immigration. In 2012, post-study work visas were abolished; these had allowed non-EU students to work in the UK for two years after graduation. Now, they may stay for only four months. In July, Cambridge University’s vicechancellor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz described using international students in the net migration target as “ludicrous” and “crazy”. He also wrote that “one of the biggest threats currently facing UK universities is the issue of international movement and controls on immigration. It is a threat that clashes profoundly with both my values and the values of all the higher education institutions, especially research-intensive universities”. Audrey Sebatindira, a Cambridge international student from Kenya, said “Getting rid of some of the extra pressures that come with being an international student makes the prospect of finding graduate-level work in the UK far less daunting.”
Editorial Comment page 15 →
Cambridge Student
Calls for diversity at literary festival Elsa Maishman News Editor
Speaking at the Cambridge Literary Festival earlier this week, the novelist Jon McGregor has criticised the lack of diversity within publishing circles. McGregor spoke in conjunction with novelists Elif Shafak and James Runcie at an event entitled ‘The Blank Page – Reading and Writing for Everyone.’ Their discussion, chaired by Ellah Allfrey, was also the finale of the National Conversation, a year of events across the UK by Norwich Writers’ Centre. Speaking about the world of publishing, McGregor told the assembled listeners that: ‘‘The problem is one of structure. The problem is one of form. The entire culture and apparatus of the published novel was developed by an economic elite with leisure time on its hands, and the descendants of that class work to perpetuate an environment in which their own sort feel at home.” He continued, saying “others are accepted only as hyphenated anomalies: the working-class-writer, the black-writer, the gay-writer, the disabled-writer, the woman-writer. ‘‘If we’re serious about diversity, and about wanting to hear the great stories that we’re currently missing out on, then it’s time to do things differently.’’ McGregor, author of If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things and Even the Dogs is also well known for his short stories. The Cambridge Literary Festival was founded in 2003, and runs annually both in spring and winter. Speakers included Sue Perkins, Charles Clarke and Carol Ann Duffy, who spoke at preview events. There have been a number of student campaigns to diversify the selection of books on Cambridge reading lists, notably from the CUSU Christmas trees are up in colleges, including this one in Corpus Christi’s hall. BME Campaign.
See more on page 12 of Part 2.
Image: Corpus Christi Conferencing