Category Archives: Students

‘It was a no-brainer’: but does a degree from abroad really make a difference?

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As applications to study in Europe plummet before Brexit, we ask British students who’ve done it where they are now

Adam Hussain was about to go to university in 2013 when tuition fees in the UK nearly trebled to £9,000. With additional loans for living costs, he realised he would incur debts of £40,000. So when he saw a television report about an exodus of UK students to the Netherlands, Hussain decided to attend an open day at Maastricht University, where annual fees were €2,000 (then about £1,700). That year more than 1,000 British freshers started university in the Netherlands.

“I already wanted to live abroad; when the higher fees came in it was a no-brainer,” says Hussain, 24, who attended an east London comprehensive.

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English test students may have been wrongly accused, says watchdog

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Home Office ‘did not have the expertise’ to check data used to accuse students of cheating

A government watchdog has criticised the Home Office for failing to protect students wrongly accused of cheating in an English language test that they were required to sit as part of a visa application process.

About 2,500 students have been forcibly removed from the UK after being accused of cheating in the exam and a further 7,200 left the country after being warned that they faced detention and removal if they stayed. Many have protested their innocence; 12,500 appeals have been heard in UK courts, and so far 3,600 people have won their appeals.

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Greta Thunberg backs climate general strike to force leaders to act

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Swedish activist says world faces ‘existential crisis’ and must achieve goals of Paris deal

Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish environmental activist, has given her support for a general strike for the climate, saying the student movement she inspired needs more support from older generations to ensure politicians keep their promises under the Paris agreement.

Speaking at a public event in London as Extinction Rebellion protests continued in the capital, the initiator of the school strike for climate movement was typically frank about the scale of the problem the world faces and the impact her campaign has made. “People are slowly becoming more aware, but emissions continue to rise. We can’t focus on small things. Basically, nothing has changed,” she said.

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Cambridge University rescinds Jordan Peterson invitation

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Offer of visiting fellowship to controversial professor resulted in backlash from faculty and students

Cambridge University has rescinded its offer of a visiting fellowship to Jordan Peterson, the self-styled “professor against political correctness”, after a backlash from faculty and students.

Peterson, a psychology professor from Toronto who has courted controversy for his views on transgender rights, gender and race, announced on Monday via his YouTube channel that he was joining Cambridge for two months.

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Erasmus scheme in chaos as UK students left in limbo

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The 17,000 students about to do a year abroad face huge uncertainty over funding and accommodation

For Alice Watkins, a Manchester University student, a year in Paris, then Madrid, as part of her degree was a dream. Now, with the turmoil of Brexit, she is preparing to arrive in France this summer with nowhere to live and no idea whether the money will still be there to support her.

“It’s horrible not knowing,” Watkins says. “We’ve been told to take at least £1,200 of our own cash to cover us for the first six weeks, and that we can’t realistically sort any accommodation before we arrive. Turning up abroad with nowhere to live is a big stress.”

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Youth climate strikes to take place in more than 100 countries

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Movement inspired by Greta Thunberg has snowballed, as Belgian workers join strike

Hundreds of thousands of children are expected to walk out of their classrooms on Friday for a global climate strike amid growing anger at the failure of politicians to tackle the escalating ecological crisis.

Children at tens of thousands of schools in more than 100 countries are due to take part in the walkouts which began last year when one teenager – Greta Thunberg – held a solo protest outside the Swedish parliament.

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‘The beginning of great change’: Greta Thunberg hails school climate strikes

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The 16-year-old’s lone protest last summer has morphed into a powerful global movement challenging politicians to act

Greta Thunberg is hopeful the student climate strike on Friday can bring about positive change, as young people in more and more countries join the protest movement she started last summer as a lone campaigner outside the Swedish parliament.

Related: Teenage activist takes School Strikes 4 Climate Action to Davos

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Record numbers from China and Hong Kong applying to study in UK

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Chinese and Hongkonger university applicants now outnumber those from Wales

Record numbers of students from China and Hong Kong are applying for places at British universities, overtaking the number of applicants from Wales, according to official figures.

Data from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (Ucas) shows a spike in demand for undergraduate places from mainland China and a small rise in applications from the EU, despite fears over Brexit.

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Women ‘terrified’ as students allowed to return after rape messages

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Men allowed back on campus early after University of Warwick reduces suspension

Women discussed as rape targets by a group of male students at the University of Warwick say they are terrified of seeing the men return to campus after the university reduced the length of their suspension.

Last year five men were barred or suspended by the university over their membership of a long-running group chat that discussed rape and sexual assault of women, including individual students, as well as racism, antisemitism and homophobia.

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Egypt frustrates Giulio Regeni investigation three years on

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Italian doctoral student’s family seek truth about his torture and murder in early 2016

Three years after the disappearance, torture and murder of Italian doctoral student Giulio Regeni in Cairo, Egypt is stonewalling Italy’s efforts to investigate.

In November, Italian prosecutors officially named five members of Egypt’s security services as subject to investigation in the case of Regeni, who went missing on 25 January 2016 aged 28. But two months on, Egypt has barely acknowledged the development.

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Mother of student held over Ortega protest in global plea for help

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Family of activist Amaya Eva Coppens, 24, appeal for help to ‘stop the repression’ of Nicaraguan government

The mother of a medical student facing more than 20 years in prison for protesting against the Nicaraguan government is appealing to the international community to put pressure on president Daniel Ortega’s regime.

Amaya Eva Coppens, a Belgian-Nicaraguan dual national, is due to stand trial in the capital Managua after being “abducted” in a raid by more than 30 riot police and paramilitaries on 10 September.

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