Kenyan scholars keeping UK universities international

By John Bradshaw

@JohnVBradshaw

I have thought a great deal about UK universities over the last two years. With two teenagers coming to the end of High School, hardly a day goes by in the Bradshaw household without uttering the words, “which university?”

Last year I spent a week with my older son touring the length and breadth of Britain, attending university open days in a quest to help him find a course.

We visited the campuses and colleges of a range of quality establishments, from Lancaster in the north to Exeter in the south.

A common experience was the presence of many overseas students. We expected internationalism, but were surprised and delighted by the diversity of the student bodies. My son feels more at home in international settings, thanks to our globe-trotting lifestyle, so this was right up his street. With so much higher educational choice as the UK offers, choosing the right university requires a system.

Otherwise it’s as random as picking deodorant in a supermarket (well for me anyway!).

I advised my son to start by studying the league tables. I am not talking English Premier League tables on a Saturday afternoon here. I mean the Times, Guardian, and Complete University Guides, all of which are analysed by bright and ambitious students and their equally keen parents every year.

The really big and truly international one is the QS World University Ranking, which this year again confirmed the UK’s place as a higher education model.

The QS rates four of the UK’s universities as among the top six in the world. Cambridge, University College London, Imperial College London, and Oxford are, according to this survey, our best universities. There are 14 others in the top 100. Graduates from Oxford and Cambridge were rated as the world’s most employable.

The number of recognised universities and other higher education institutions in the UK is more than 160. Almost all of them have a good body of students and alumni from Kenya, and Kenyans continue to pick the UK as one of their most popular higher education destinations.

Many Kenyan students have recently been enjoying their last few days of home comforts before heading off to a UK university for the 2013/14 term.

I know this because I have witnessed dedicated visa department colleagues covered in beads of sweat marching out at the end of each day having cleared another enormous batch of student applications. Not just student visas for Kenyans but also applications from the other 11 countries who have their visas processed through our Nairobi hub.

I also know that some of the students from Kenya have gone on scholarship programmes. Last month we had a reception for the latest Kenyan recipients of Foreign & Commonwealth Office-funded Chevening scholarships, awarded to potential future leaders, decision-makers and opinion formers. Following a rigorous application and interview process we selected nine incredible Kenyans to study Masters courses at various UK universities.

Our Guest of Honour that evening, Sports, Culture and Art Cabinet Secretary Dr Hassan Wario was himself a Chevening alumnus, studying at UEA. The application window for Chevening 2014 closes next week, on Friday 1 November (www.chevening.org/kenya/).

Just a few days after the Chevening event Kenyan scholars won UK scholarships at two further events, both of them in collaboration with the British Council. For the second year Tullow Oil gave ten scholarships to a group of Masters students heading off to the UK to study oil and gas-related subjects.

And Keele University were also in town to present three full scholarships. Kenyans also benefit from several other UK scholarships, including Rhodes. These are given to two outstanding students every year, on the basis of “exceptional intellect, character, leadership and commitment to service” for study at Oxford.

Our defence co-operation programme also provides a Masters scholarship for Defence Studies courses at King’s College. Plus other individual universities offer international scholarships such as Sheffield, Manchester, Aberdeen, Kent, Leicester, Leeds and more. To cap it all, I recently attended a British Council reception for Commonwealth Scholarships in Kenya. The Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Plan, to give it its full name, is a long established scheme to give UK postgraduate scholarships to worthy students across Commonwealth countries. Over 26,000 people have benefitted from these scholarships, including over 1,200 from Kenya, thanks to UK funding from a range of departments including the Department for International Development.

Close to 100 Kenyans per year benefit from UK scholarships, before returning to join the push towards Vision 2030. Not to mention all the other smaller bursaries, discounts and special offers that UK universities offer to international students via their websites. Perhaps this partly explains why British universities are so wonderfully international. Well it can’t be the British weather...

The writer is Head of Communications at the British High Commission