ALMOST ONE IN five of the world’s central bankers has been educated at a UK university, according to a report that stresses the “soft power” that Britain gains from educating the world’s elite. It calls on the government to commission research on how British education affects the UK’s influence globally. It would like to see the results used to inform immigration policy — which many in higher education have claimed is deterring international students from attending UK universities.

Education and British Soft Power — The Unexplored Connection was commissioned by ExEdUK, a group of businesses and organisations that export education. It looked at non-British Nobel prizewinners, central bankers and people with entries in Who’s Who to see how many had been educated in the UK.

The most surprising finding was that 32 of the world’s 177 central bankers had attended UK universities, says Graham Able, chairman of ExEdUK. These include Haruhiko Kuroda, the governor of the Bank of Japan, who studied for an M.Phil in economics at the University of Oxford, and Stanley Fischer, who until June 2013 was governor of the Bank of Israel and who acquired a B.Sc and M.Sc in economics from the London School of Economics. “I think an element of UK education can make you preferably disposed towards the UK,” says Able.

The head of a corporation in China, for example, would be more inclined to think favourably of and to strike a deal with a British firm if he had studied in the UK, he adds. Likewise with foreign politicians, “There’s a better chance that someone who understands the UK (having been educated there)… will appreciate us better.”

The report found 407 non-Britons listed in Who’s Who who had been educated in the UK, the vast majority as undergraduates. Forty-two percent of them were listed for their role in scholarly work, research or medicine, while 22 percent were involved in government, politics or international relations. Most hailed from countries with close ties to the UK: 25 percent were from Australia; 19 percent from the US; 9 percent from Canada and 6 percent from New Zealand. Able says it would be good if in 30 to 40 years, this list included people from countries that are now developing, although he noted that leaders in African Commonwealth countries did already feature. Moreover 13 percent of non-British Nobel prizewinners had been educated in the UK or had held a position at a British university, the ExEdUK research reveals.

When it came to analysing soft power, the report has only “scratched the surface”, stresses Able. It was intended, he said, to spur the government to undertake much more detailed research in the area in order to inform its policy on international students — rather than having immigration policy driven by the “gut reaction” of some in the media.

In January it emerged that the number of non-European Union students studying at British universities in 2012-13 had fallen for the first time on record. Some have blamed the drop on a tougher visa regime and the withdrawal, in 2012, of the automatic right to work in the UK for two years after graduation

(Excerpted and adapted from Times Higher Education)