Academics at the University and College Union (UCU) conference in Bournemouth voted to boycott the reporting requirements under the governments new points based immigration system.
Under the government’s plans, universities are to be given a duty to monitor and report the absences of non-EU staff and students. The plans were introduced in order to help curb the number of illegal immigrants who come in posing as students.
The academics, however, felt that the reporting requirements made them Home Office snoopers and would damage the relationships between themselves and international students and staff members.
Sally Hunt, General Secretary of the UCU, explained that members had principled moral objections to the proposals and the proposals would make them de facto border guards, which they were not. She went on to say that the union was committed to “non-compliance with all such policing and surveillance duties”.
Miss Hunt had previously said “The Union’s protection of members cannot extend to endorsing a breach of the law relating to the points-based system, or defending members who do so.”
A Home Office spokesman said “Educational institutions have a duty of care to all their students and checking that they are attending and making progress in their studies is part of that responsibility. The records we expect education providers to keep are those which most will keep for their own purposes anyway.”
