Written by Jim Onyemenam, Postgraduate Students' Officer
As part of the work we are doing as a Union, specifically on the regulatory environment around international students and as a result of the prospect of Attendance Monitoring becoming a regulatory requirement imposed by UKVI, we are collating anecdotes and case studies from international students here at UCL detailing their experience at university as an international student.
There are already reported instances universities employing biometric fingerprinting to track international students in their London campuses, the implementation of surveillance and attendance monitoring systems under the guise of welfare and wellbeing projects, onerous ‘engagement checks’ imposed exclusively on overseas postgraduate students, and impromptu visa checks.
We have prepared an anonymous survey within which we encourage sharing any and all elements of your experience here at UCL – whether positive, negative, or neutral. Your experience need not relate specifically to attendance monitoring either - we are building an account of what the experience of an international student at a UK Higher Education institution is like and your voice is integral to us doing this.