International briefs

Britain hunts for 4000 ‘bogus’ foreign students The British government is trying to locate nearly 4000 foreign students after coming to the UK to study at bogus colleges. The students were all due to study at colleges that have had their licences revoked by the government under a system brought in to close immigration loopholes linked to foreign education. The Opposition accused the government of not taking the problem seriously enough. Despite the government’s claims to have tightened up the student visa system, they had failed to crack down on high numbers of “bogus” students who are already here, said the Tories’ immigration spokesman, Damian Green. The Tories said that those students who entered Britain before 1 April and were found to have enrolled at a bogus college which had had its licence revoked had entered the UK on fraudulent purposes. Modern Greek at Cambridge in danger Lack of funds may force the modern Greek department at Cambridge University to close. Cambridge’s chair of modern Greek, Professor David Holton, told a gathering in Athens to mark Cambridge’s 800 years, that despite an immense contribution to research of the Greek language, the department was facing closure unless some form of rescue was on the way. He launched an appeal to Greek authorities cultural foundations, charitable institutions and wealthy private individuals to raise $7 million to be placed in an endowment fund to appoint a full-time permanent lecturer on his pending retirement. The Greek Ministry of Education has previously seconded a teacher to Cambridge. There is also a privately funded professorship of Greek culture which focuses on ancient Greece. US poised embrace overseas agents The US is poised to seize an even greater share of the lucrative international student market – they are to embrace student recruitment agents. A report from the Observatory on Borderless Higher Education although the US remains the most popular destination for international students, “other countries with more aggressive recruitment strategies have steadily cut into the US market share in the past decade”.. American law bans the payment of agents in the domestic recruitment market, which has led to a widespread misconception that overseas agents are also banned, says the report, ‘Leading the horse to water’. IDP Education, Australia’s largest international student recruitment company, announced in May that it would be branching out to help US institutions. It aims to have 60 American bodies on its books in time to recruit students for the 2010-11 academic year.