UK universities urge ministers for emergency funds to survive COVID-19

Universities across UK on Friday launched an urgent appeal for British government to step in with emergency funding to help m survive coronavirus pandemic lockdown, which threatens ir biggest income source from international students.

Universities UK (UUK), country’s vocacy organisation for higher education institutions, says its modelling shows risks to fee income from international students, from countries like India, totals 6.9 billion pounds across UK higher education sector.

Without proactive action and funding support, it warns that some universities would likely face financial failure and has presented a set of measures as part of a paper dressed to senior government ministers.

“ pack of measures we have proposed today will support universities across all four nations of UK to ensure that y remain able to wear very serious financial challenges posed by COVID-19,” said Alistair Jarvis, Chief Executive of Universities UK.

“It will help to protect student interest, to maintain research capacity, to prevent institutions failing and maintain capacity to play a central role in recovery of ecomy and communities following crisis,” he said.

Universities are calling for an extra 2 billion pounds in research funding as well as emergency loans for universities that faced "significant income losses".

Among its set of measures within “Achieving stability in higher education sector following COVID-19” paper, UUK calls on government to encour and enable international students to choose to study in UK as planned and deliver transformation funds to support some universities over next two to three years to significantly reshape to achieve longer-term sustainability.

It also calls for protection from cuts to courses which help meet national need for public sector workers such as health professionals and teachers and provide targeted support for retraining/reskilling for people whose jobs are affected by coronavirus.

UUK’s paper also provides a commitment to universities doing everything y can to reduce costs and furr increase efficiency through strong actions such as recruitment freezes and new tighter controls on spending.

“Universities have alrey me a huge contribution to national effort to fight COVID-19 and moving forward will act collectively and responsibly to promote sector-wide financial stability in se challenging times and help country to get back on its feet and people to rebuild ir lives,” ded Jarvis.

Overseas students pay a higher rate of tuition fees than domestic students and re are fears that se numbers could be hard hit as fewer students from UK's top source countries of China and India take up courses in aftermath of outbreak.

university sector says it has alrey lost 790 million pounds in cancelled business activities, such as conferences, catering and student accommodation. re is also uncertainty about wher campuses will be able to re-open for its session later this year in autumn or wher many UK students will defer entry this year.

" outbreak poses significant challenges to sector and government is working closely with universities to understand financial risks and implications y might face at this uncertain time," a Department for Education statement said.

Im Credits: AP