Students and staff from De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) are visiting Vilnius to demonstrate to prospective students why DMU is so popular with students across the EU.
Despite an overall fall in applications to British universities and the political uncertainty around Brexit, DMU has seen an increase of 40% in EU students starting this year.
In the last year, DMU was ranked as the UK’s best university for getting graduates into highly-skilled employment or further study and was awarded gold in the Teaching Excellence Framework, the UK government’s first official ranking of universities. Many Lithuanian students have identified these successes as a key reason for choosing to study at DMU.
DMU is also one of the UK’s most vibrant and multi-cultural universities and welcomes students and staff from more than 130 countries, another factor which has appealed to international students.
DMU has a strong connection to Lithuania and this visit is the second time in the last 18 months that the university has travelled to Vilnius.
The first visit came in August 2016 as part of DMU’s #LoveInternational campaign, created in response to the EU referendum result, and provided an opportunity for senior staff and Polish students from the university to dispel many of the myths which had arisen about post-Brexit access and rights to work and study in the UK.
Current Lithuanian students will join senior staff – including the Deputy Vice-Chancellor Andy Collop – in an event and reception open to Lithuanian media, where DMU’s work will be presented and discussed. The students will talk about the benefits of studying abroad and their experience of international education.
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The visit follows the launch of a new campaign by DMU, which aims to ‘Keep Universities for the Many’, and international students are an important part of it.
Amidst talk of a review of how higher education is funded, DMU Vice-Chancellor Professor Dominic Shellard has called for a Royal Commission to take the issue of higher education funding out of the political sphere to ensure the best possible model for students from the UK and abroad.
Professor Shellard said: “DMU has always been a vibrant community from diverse backgrounds and cultures, and we wanted to reaffirm that our international students and staff are a vital part of what makes us special – perhaps now more than ever. We also believe they will remain essential in the future, no matter how the Brexit process unfolds.
“Following our last visit to Lithuania, it has been hugely reassuring for us to know that you took us at our word. In our September 2017 cohort, we bucked a national decline in numbers to enjoy a 40 per cent increase in EU students.
“That is astonishing and we couldn’t be more delighted to be back here, to celebrate old friendships that are stronger than ever while building new ones that transcend politics and borders.”
Posted on Tuesday 24 October 2017