BNO (British National Overseas citizenship) holders and UK higher education
- Michael Natzler, Former HEPI Policy Officer and Consultant at Nous Group
- Ka Ho Mok, Lingnan University
- Tommy Chan, Hongkongers in Britain
- Corinne Squire, University of Bristol
- Sunder Katwala, British Future
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In January 2020, the UK opened up an immigration pathway to several million Hong Kong residents which would allow them to come to the UK to work and study. The crucial criteria was that they had British National Overseas citizenship which residents were eligible to apply for before the handover of Hong Kong to the People’s Republic of China in 1997. There were 100,000 applications in the first 12 months of the programme which is in line with the Government’s estimate of between 250,000 and 350,000 BNO holder arrivals in by 2026.
Although BNO holders have a specific immigration route, there has been little to no discussion of how they will fit into UK higher education, nor estimates of how higher education institutions might adapt. This webinar will aim to unpack some of the impacts and questions the arrivals of BNO holders will have for UK higher education, drawing on the wider context of an increase in displaced people, pressure on undergraduate places and the role of China in UK higher education.
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Michael Natzler led the Higher Education Policy Institute’s (HEPI) work on China and now works as a Consultant at Nous Group, an international management consultancy with a strong specialism in higher education. At HEPI, Michael edited the collection of essays UK Universities and China (2020) and wrote Understanding China (2022), a review of the state of China studies and Mandarin learning in schools and universities. He has written about BNO holders in the contexts of the higher education and the charity sectors. He graduated from the University of Bristol in 2019 with a BA in Classics.
Ka Ho Mok is Vice President and concurrently Chair Professor of Comparative Policy of Lingnan University. He researches and publishes on higher education policy and governance, comparative development and policy studies, and social development in contemporary China and East Asia. Ka Ho was named by the Ministry of Education in China as Changjiang Chair Professor (Comparative Education and East Asian Studies) in 2010.
Tommy Chan is the Casework Officer Lead for Hongkongers in Britain, a civil-society organisation established in July 2020. It is the first Hongkongers expat/diaspora and community-building group set up in the UK since the UK announced the introduction of a Welcome Programme for Hongkongers. HKB’s primary objectives are to provide assistance, advice and support for the Hongkongers community coming to/arrived in the UK; enabling them to settle, integrate, and contribute towards the UK society. Tommy graduated from a Masters programme in Interpreting in South Wales, having previously been a project manager in the voluntary sector. He specialised in providing advice for ethnic minorities facing language barriers and relevant language services in public services.
Corinne Squire is Chair in Global Inequalities at the University of Bristol School for Policy Studies. Previously, Corinne has been the Director of the Centre for Narrative Research at the University of East London and has Honorary positions at the UCL Social Research Institute the Manchester Institute of Education.
Sunder Katwala is the director of British Future. He has previously worked as a journalist. He was general secretary of the Fabian Society thinktank from 2003 to 2011, and was previously a leader writer and internet editor at the Observer, a research director of the Foreign Policy Centre and commissioning editor for politics and economics at the publisher Macmillan. He e was born in Doncaster, Yorkshire, to parents who came to Britain from India and Ireland, to work for the NHS.
