Dr Qaisar Rashid
On 30 August, British High Commissioner Jane Marriott chaired the ceremony awarding 46 Chevening Scholarships to Pakistani mid-career professionals for the 2023–24 academic year in the field of social sciences. Almost half of the scholarships were awarded to civil servants, with the rest going to other aspirants – enabling them to pursue a fully funded one-year Master’s degree in the United Kingdom (UK).
Chevening is the UK Government’s international scholarship programme, run as part of its foreign policy objectives. The stated aims of the scholarship are to provide access to some of the best-quality education in the world, exclusive networking opportunities, and the chance to explore the UK’s diverse culture, before joining the Chevening alumni network. A prerequisite is to secure an unconditional offer on a course provided by three Chevening partner universities. Fully funded support includes tuition fees, living expenses, and travel costs. Approximately, each scholarship costs the UK Government around £20,000 per selected student. A question arises: what is the purpose of this substantial expenditure?
Within the sphere of engaging civil servants, numerous examples of misalignment exist between the educational backgrounds of applicants, the degrees awarded, and the career trajectories of applicants as mid-career professionals. For example, a couple of years ago, a civil servant in the Foreign Service was awarded a Chevening scholarship to study Global Economic Governance at the University of Oxford. The officer had an academic background in MA English but lacked any academic background in economics. The degree awarded was also not aligned with the future career of the civil servant, who should have been provided with advanced knowledge in core disciplines such as international relations and law, although global governance could be remotely related.
Similarly, a civil servant working in Inland Revenue was awarded a Chevening scholarship to study for a Master’s in Public Administration at the University of Warwick. The officer held a background in medicine (MBBS) but no academic background in public administration. The degree awarded was also not aligned with the career prospects of the civil servant, who should have been provided with advanced knowledge in the field of income and corporate taxes, though public administration might be remotely related. Obviously, such admissions could not be secured by self-paying overseas Pakistani students.
In each case, the degree, framed and displayed on the wall of the civil servant’s office, serves as a boast of the achievement of studying at a renowned university, without revealing to admiring listeners that the knowledge gained was irrelevant to the core discipline of their career. For the Chevening scheme, the primary focus appears to be on developing a network of indebted, gratified civil servants working in Pakistan. The scholarship is akin to baksheesh – a payment (such as a tip or bribe) to expedite services. The underlying purpose is to cultivate an obliged, loyal group of civil servants who may facilitate deeper penetration into the system later. Certainly, the scholarship scheme fosters a network of grateful civil servants, who are inclined to protect the UK Government’s interests in Pakistan.
Another question emerges: why is the UK Government invested in the future of mid-career professionals (civil servants)? The answer lies in the fact that spending £20,000 per head to secure the loyalty of strategically positioned civil servants is not an unprofitable investment. If a self-paying overseas Pakistani student were to visit a government office in Pakistan with complaints that a UK university had defrauded them by offering a subpar course or failing to deliver on promised course content, the complaint would likely go unheard in the current scenario.
Published on 15 July this year on the House of Commons Library website of the UK Parliament, under the heading “Higher education in the UK: Systems, policy approaches, and challenges,” the UK Government’s International Education Strategy includes two declared ambitions: first, to increase the value of education exports to £35 billion per year by 2030 (compared to £31 billion in 2021–22); and second, to increase the total number of international students choosing to study in the UK’s higher education system each year to 600,000 by 2030.
It is akin to channelling money from the pockets of self-paying overseas (Pakistani) students into the pockets of mid-career civil servants under scholarship schemes like Chevening, which forms part of the education export industry aligned with foreign policy objectives, presenting no net economic loss to the UK Government.
The UK’s higher education system presents two main challenges to self-paying overseas students. First, the proliferation of rip-off (low-value) degree courses, which have played a role in turning some overseas students into asylum seekers. Second, breaking commitments to delivering quality education and research midway through a course, thus wasting the time and money of overseas students. In recent years, the UK Government has launched crackdowns on the former but not the latter. The approach employed by the latter is that, midway through a postgraduate course, particularly in life sciences and research, an excuse is presented that certain facilities (or research projects) cannot be provided. Reasons range from the university’s international office mistakenly sending brochures with misprinted course contents to enrol students, to the office making commitments without consulting the relevant department. The University of Glasgow frequently serves as an example of this tactic.
One question remains: how is it possible that a university’s departments are unaware of what has been promised in writing for years to self-paying overseas students to secure enrolments? On this issue, the UK Government remains silent, conveniently facilitating the fulfilment of the International Education Strategy targets set for 2030. Moreover, the UK Government’s preference appears to be to quell discontented voices of self-paying international students by obliging civil servants from their respective countries through scholarship schemes like Chevening.
The writer is a freelance columnist. He can be reached at qaisarrashid@yahoo.com
