This is a busy period for Year 13 students at the many British curriculum schools in the UAE. Students may typically be preparing for exams while simultaneously seeking to secure a place at a UK university for the following academic year.
The UK’s Universities and Colleges Admissions Service, UCAS, says it handles more than 3 million applicants in each recruitment cycle from 750,000 candidates in Britain and elsewhere. The initial deadline for applications passed at the end of last month and offers are being sent out to prospective students.
The stress of long hours of exam preparation is often added to by the uncertainty over whether an applicant receives offers from their preferred choice of university. There is also a lack of clarity over fee status for British students who may live outside their home country.
For Year 13 students domiciled outside the UK, universities will make a separate call on their residency status, which affects the fees that the undergraduate pays for their studies. They may do this before or after a grades-dependent offer is issued.
The Department of Education in England sets the rules for who secures “home-status”, but individual universities are able to use their discretion in selection processes. Universities may require further evidence of a candidate’s links to the UK before deciding whether a person should be given “home-status” or be classed as an international student. Crucially, being a British passport holder does not automatically confer that status.
It is not unusual for a candidate to have to provide “hard” evidence, such as booking receipts or boarding passes from flights to England over the past few years, or details of their parents’ employment status outside the UK including partial copies of work contracts, or even provide financial documents such as mortgage statements and utility bills to trace footprints back to England and establish familial or habitual connections with their “home” country.
Even when presented with these documents, it is possible that an English university may categorise a student with a UK passport as an international undergraduate rather than offering home-status.
Forms typically ask candidates to explain their 'absence' from Britain, making the presumption that they were 'active and central' participants in a family’s decision to move abroad
Fees for home-status students are capped at £9,250 (about Dh42,000) a year in 2024-25, although they will rise to £9,535 from the next academic year, while overseas student fees are typically at least £20,000 (about Dh90,000) a year. They could even be double that figure for specialist degrees, such as medicine. Those numbers do not consider living costs, which add about £1,200 a month, according to general guidance from the British Council. International students may also be required to pay a substantial deposit to confirm their place once they have received an offer.
UK students can seek publicly funded support, in the form of loans for tuition fees and day-to-day living, which become repayable once a graduate has entered the workforce and is earning above a certain threshold.
Home-status students previously domiciled temporarily outside the UK may be able to apply for maintenance loans, but only after they have lived in the country for three years, which is the length of a standard undergraduate degree. They are likely to be able to apply for loans to support their tuition fees. International students will probably have to entirely fund their studies from savings, cashflow, gifts or scholarships.
So how do you unpick this Gordian Knot? The easiest way to unclog administrative backlogs would be to either classify all British passport holder applicants as home-status students or, failing that, to create three tiers of fees.
That would mean adding a “returning to the UK after attending school abroad” category to sit in between home and international status. At least that would provide clarity for families overseas and allow them to better plan financially over the longer term, assuming fee levels were set at a reasonable compromise level.
Universities should also be encouraged to have a standard set of information requirements or forms when making fee status judgment. While they operate under common guidelines, their discretionary powers promote quirks in the system and prompt varying levels of disclosure, so that two students may have very different outcomes from the same university, even when their circumstances are broadly similar.
While estimates vary about how many UK passport holders live overseas, it is probably no less than 5.5 million people, many of whom are young people who will seek to return to UK universities at 18 or 19 years old.
Those young adults are unlikely to have been primary decision-makers in their households when a family left the UK to move abroad. But forms typically ask candidates to explain and account for their “absence” from Britain, making the presumption that they were “active and central” participants in a family’s decision to move abroad.
These forms also assume that families exist in unchanging suspension once they leave the UK. Many expatriates with school-aged children leave the UK for work but could suddenly return if job opportunities dry up elsewhere or family circumstances demand a permanent return to Britain. Home-status forms typically assume expats have emigrated to their host country, rather than, in many cases, temporarily residing overseas.
A fresh perspective is required and one that starts with redefining the meaning of “home” country.
The Book of Collateral Damage
Sinan Antoon
(Yale University Press)
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The biog
Title: General Practitioner with a speciality in cardiology
Previous jobs: Worked in well-known hospitals Jaslok and Breach Candy in Mumbai, India
Education: Medical degree from the Government Medical College in Nagpur
How it all began: opened his first clinic in Ajman in 1993
Family: a 90-year-old mother, wife and two daughters
Remembers a time when medicines from India were purchased per kilo
The language of diplomacy in 1853
Treaty of Peace in Perpetuity Agreed Upon by the Chiefs of the Arabian Coast on Behalf of Themselves, Their Heirs and Successors Under the Mediation of the Resident of the Persian Gulf, 1853
(This treaty gave the region the name “Trucial States”.)
We, whose seals are hereunto affixed, Sheikh Sultan bin Suggar, Chief of Rassool-Kheimah, Sheikh Saeed bin Tahnoon, Chief of Aboo Dhebbee, Sheikh Saeed bin Buyte, Chief of Debay, Sheikh Hamid bin Rashed, Chief of Ejman, Sheikh Abdoola bin Rashed, Chief of Umm-ool-Keiweyn, having experienced for a series of years the benefits and advantages resulting from a maritime truce contracted amongst ourselves under the mediation of the Resident in the Persian Gulf and renewed from time to time up to the present period, and being fully impressed, therefore, with a sense of evil consequence formerly arising, from the prosecution of our feuds at sea, whereby our subjects and dependants were prevented from carrying on the pearl fishery in security, and were exposed to interruption and molestation when passing on their lawful occasions, accordingly, we, as aforesaid have determined, for ourselves, our heirs and successors, to conclude together a lasting and inviolable peace from this time forth in perpetuity.
Taken from Britain and Saudi Arabia, 1925-1939: the Imperial Oasis, by Clive Leatherdale
Paatal Lok season two
Directors: Avinash Arun, Prosit Roy
Stars: Jaideep Ahlawat, Ishwak Singh, Lc Sekhose, Merenla Imsong
Rating: 4.5/5
The five pillars of Islam
1. Fasting
2. Prayer
3. Hajj
4. Shahada
5. Zakat
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MATCH INFO
Manchester United 1 (Greenwood 77')
Everton 1 (Lindelof 36' og)
MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League, last-16 second leg
Paris Saint-Germain (1) v Borussia Dortmund (2)
Kick-off: Midnight, Thursday, March 12
Stadium: Parc des Princes
Live: On beIN Sports HD
UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
Where to buy
Limited-edition art prints of The Sofa Series: Sultani can be acquired from Reem El Mutwalli at www.reemelmutwalli.com
TOURNAMENT INFO
Women’s World Twenty20 Qualifier
Jul 3- 14, in the Netherlands
The top two teams will qualify to play at the World T20 in the West Indies in November
UAE squad
Humaira Tasneem (captain), Chamani Seneviratne, Subha Srinivasan, Neha Sharma, Kavisha Kumari, Judit Cleetus, Chaya Mughal, Roopa Nagraj, Heena Hotchandani, Namita D’Souza, Ishani Senevirathne, Esha Oza, Nisha Ali, Udeni Kuruppuarachchi
Wicked: For Good
Director: Jon M Chu
Starring: Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Jonathan Bailey, Jeff Goldblum, Michelle Yeoh, Ethan Slater
Rating: 4/5
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
Result
2.15pm: Maiden Dh75,000 1,950m; Winner: Majestic Thunder, Tadhg O’Shea (jockey), Satish Seemar (trainer).
2.45pm: Handicap Dh80,000 1,800m; Winner: Tailor’s Row, Royston Ffrench, Salem bin Ghadayer.
3.15pm: Handicap Dh85,000 1,600m; Winner: Native Appeal, Adam McLean, Doug Watson.
3.45pm: Handicap Dh115,000 1,950m; Winner: Conclusion, Antonio Fresu, Musabah Al Muhairi.
4.15pm: Handicap Dh100,000 1,400m; Winner: Pilgrim’s Treasure, Tadhg O’Shea, Satish Seemar.
4.45pm: Maiden Dh75,000 1,400m; Winner: Sanad Libya, Richard Mullen, Satish Seemar.
5.15pm: Handicap Dh90,000 1,000m; Winner: Midlander, Richard Mullen, Satish Seemar
The specs
- Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
- Power: 640hp
- Torque: 760nm
- On sale: 2026
- Price: Not announced yet
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
The specs: 2019 Aston Martin DBS Superleggera
Price, base: Dh1.2 million
Engine: 5.2-litre twin-turbo V12
Transmission: Eight-speed automatic
Power: 725hp @ 6,500pm
Torque: 900Nm @ 1,800rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 12.3L / 100km (estimate)
Russia's Muslim Heartlands
Dominic Rubin, Oxford
Uefa Nations League
League A:
Germany, Portugal, Belgium, Spain, France, England, Switzerland, Italy, Poland, Iceland, Croatia, Netherlands
League B:
Austria, Wales, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden, Ukraine, Republic of Ireland, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Northern Ireland, Denmark, Czech Republic, Turkey
League C:
Hungary, Romania, Scotland, Slovenia, Greece, Serbia, Albania, Norway, Montenegro, Israel, Bulgaria, Finland, Cyprus, Estonia, Lithuania
League D:
Azerbaijan, Macedonia, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, Latvia, Faroe Islands, Luxembourg, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Liechtenstein, Malta, Andorra, Kosovo, San Marino, Gibraltar
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The specs
Engine: four-litre V6 and 3.5-litre V6 twin-turbo
Transmission: six-speed and 10-speed
Power: 271 and 409 horsepower
Torque: 385 and 650Nm
Price: from Dh229,900 to Dh355,000
Skoda Superb Specs
Engine: 2-litre TSI petrol
Power: 190hp
Torque: 320Nm
Price: From Dh147,000
Available: Now
US households add $601bn of debt in 2019
American households borrowed another $601 billion (Dh2.2bn) in 2019, the largest yearly gain since 2007, just before the global financial crisis, according to February data from the New York Federal Reserve Bank.
Fuelled by rising mortgage debt as homebuyers continued to take advantage of low interest rates, the increase last year brought total household debt to a record high, surpassing the previous peak reached in 2008 just before the market crash, according to the report.
Following the 22nd straight quarter of growth, American household debt swelled to $14.15 trillion by the end of 2019, the New York Fed said in its quarterly report.
In the final three months of the year, new home loans jumped to their highest volume since the fourth quarter of 2005, while credit cards and auto loans also added to the increase.
The bad debt load is taking its toll on some households, and the New York Fed warned that more and more credit card borrowers — particularly young people — were falling behind on their payments.
"Younger borrowers, who are disproportionately likely to have credit cards and student loans as their primary form of debt, struggle more than others with on-time repayment," New York Fed researchers said.
It Was Just an Accident
Director: Jafar Panahi
Stars: Vahid Mobasseri, Mariam Afshari, Ebrahim Azizi, Hadis Pakbaten, Majid Panahi, Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr
Rating: 4/5
Graduated from the American University of Sharjah
She is the eldest of three brothers and two sisters
Has helped solve 15 cases of electric shocks
Enjoys travelling, reading and horse riding
GOODBYE%20JULIA
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
