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UK Students Protest Biometric Scanner Move
Presto Vivace writes that the UK's Newcastle University is instituting a finger-print based attendance system. From the linked article: "University students may have to scan their fingerprints in future — to prove they are not bunking off lectures. ... Newcastle Free Education Network has organised protests against the plans, claiming the scanners would 'turn universities into border checkpoints' and 'reduce university to the attendance of lectures alone.'"
The system is supposed to bring the university "in line with the UK Border Agency (UKBA) and clamp down on illegal immigrants."
I spent my first two years of calculus lectures sleeping in. I scored near perfect in both classes. WHY do people have to be at lectures they don't need, again? It's the university's stupid rules that don't allow me to just test out of the classes: they've got to have their money. But why would they want me sitting in a lecture distracting other people while I surf youtube?
The UK is concerned that some of their international students are illegally working. Their reasoning is that school and work are mutually exclusive so if you are in school you are not working and vise versa. This is flawed reasoning.
A new unofficial Student service to sell you latex gloves with 'someone else's' fingerpints embedded in the fingers.
Available in any of the Pubs that sell Newcastle Brown around the University.
being serious for a moment,
If it is the UKBA demanding this then I guess that if you are a British citizen you can stick two finger(prints) up at them. IMHO, demanding this sort of thing from UK Citizens is the sort of thing that would get them sued pretty quickly. There is no legal requirement to have any form of ID in the UK.
WHY do universities have to prove that overseas students are actually attending the university? Why is this so critical?
Sure, I understand that you don't want the students getting jobs illegally. But what does that have to do with the university? Employers need to make sure that their workers have proper immigration status. It shouldn't be the university's responsibility. And beyond that, who cares?
The UK is concerned that some of their international students are illegally working.
If international student visa abuse is the problem . . . then why are they proposing to monitor the attendance of ALL students . . . ? Methinks they are planning to use this for something else in the future . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Disney World has been quietly requiring fingerprint scans for certain parts of the park: http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_columnist_mikethomas/2007/05/finger_scanners.html
While it seems new for school attendance, non-financial biometric scans are not new...
That's fair, but I did want people to think about this.
My suggestion was that we do wifi-pinging from student mobiles to cover most cases (as in you download an app and it checks you're in-range of our wifi), and use attendance at tutorials and 2-3 annual full checks (as in turn up with your passport so we can double check everything) to cover the requirement for more in-depth checks. Having tried ID card based lecture attendance, we've found mostly it's a huge pain; even when it works correctly it creates long queues at the start of lectures, and it's more hardware we have to manage. I don't imagine Newcastle will be doing fingerprint checks for long, personally...
By requiring that the student present a transcript each year at visa-renewal time in order showing that he or she has taken exams and gained a certain amount of credits toward a degree. This is how it is done in Finland, at least. This has the advantage of not hassling students who feel that their time is better spent in the library instead of at lectures.
From my point of view (as a non-academic who works on improving university administration), it matters for a few key reasons:
1. Students who don't turn up to lectures are more likely to drop out of university. This particularly goes for students whose attendance was good and tails off, so we want to spot them early on and ask if they need any help (academic or personal).
2. If a student turns up mid-way through semester with problems, we're inclined to be a lot more sympathetic (and devote more staff time to helping) if you've attended class. If you didn't attend class and then don't know the material, it could be argued that's rather your own fault.
Although I abhor the practice of compulsory biometric tracking, in the case of employees I can at least see some small justification for it, because employees receive paycheques in exchange for adhering to their employers' rules.
But when an institution to which I am paying money for a service wants my fingerprints so they can track me, they can just fuck right off. And the government too, for that matter. Brits ought to be calling loudly for the heads of the decision makers on this one.
Although I believe it often goes too far, I'll admit the need for some kind of immigration monitoring and enforcement. But when that monitoring turns ordinary innocent citizens into the subjects of invasive surveillance, it's time to draw the line. This is 'death by a thousand cuts' stuff, and what's being cut and killed is our very freedom. This shit has to stop.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
Gotta have people coming over to do the jobs you don't want to at wages you won't work for. But we can't have them getting an education.
This isn't to keep people out of education, it's to ensure those that signed on for a course as I requirement of getting a visa do turn up.
Student visas are currently the easiest type of visa's to get for the UK. Once students (over)stay for 5 years they can apply for a permanent visa and in many cases claim benefits.
WHY do universities have to prove that overseas students are actually attending the university? Why is this so critical?
Anyone signed onto a course gets a student visa. After staying for 5 years they can apply for permanent residency. Because of this there are plenty of people with a very basic, or no, education who sign up to courses they never attend as a way to get permanent residency in the UK and the benefits that go with it.
Now if someone genuinely spends 5 years in education they are an asset to the country and should be allowed to stay. If they know nothing and just want free stuff from the state that's not OK.
Once students (over)stay for 5 years they can apply for a permanent visa and in many cases claim benefits.
As a student in UK on Tier-4 visa, please let me assure you that this is pure bullshit! You won't get any permanent residency status here just based on study visas, even if you stay for 8-9 years. You need to get a work visa and only then your presence here will be counted toward those 5 years (to get 'leave to remain'). Getting a work visa is not easy and it has get harder since the recent changes in regulations.