Pointless
Uploaded on Apr 21, 2011 / 294 views / 500 impressions / 4 comments
Description
Katja Reinhardt a student from Germany and WORLDbytes reporter investigates the impact of the points based immigration system on international students. She hears from campaigners students and professors who tell of scandalous stories of university...
Katja Reinhardt a student from Germany and WORLDbytes reporter investigates the impact of the points based immigration system on international students. She hears from campaigners students and professors who tell of scandalous stories of university staff being pushed to become border agents and maintain surveillance of overseas students; treating them as criminals.
4 comments
andrew2544
The closure of the 'universal' university? Knowledge without borders may now only exist online. Teachers and students for open borders would be a great start?
smellyha
It is like a quote I read recently on a blog about the call for diversity in UK universities, where someone said that the UK wants ‘more brown and black people in their universities, but does not want more brown and black people in the UK’. Great report. The immigration laws that prevent international students from studying in British universities are just one more victim of the lack of Open Borders and serves to create fear and promote surveillance among British universities – a tragic instrumentalisation of British education.
imlovinit
This is a powerful and damning inditement of the treatment of overseas students through the visa points system. The sytem has ramped up fear and surveillance within universities, astonishing unfreedom and the closure of the mind as well as borders.
Paulette
I really liked what Les said about not being able to think, imagine, have ideas, or learn in a climate of fear and distrust. He was also spot on about the system keeping the poor out – let’s face it such a large proportion of the population are just told that they have to stand still, who are being held back as Les put it. Katja obviously is passionate about this (I suppose that is why she produced this report) and like her I am also worried about an immigration system that sees some of us as deserving an education and some of us not. But, that is what you get with any immigration system – as it necessarily categorizes people, puts people on a hierarchy. So we have to be against it all and not just fight for international students, or artists who can’t come in – we need to have freedom of movement for everybody. What do others think?