Let Edmund learn to teach!

Dr Edmund Schluessel is on Cardiff University's PGCE course, studying to be a college physics lecturer -- one of the most-demanded teaching specialisations in Wales. Edmund is a double citizen of the USA and France. A student at Cardiff University, where he completed his PhD in theoretical astrophysics, since 2005, the University have allowed Edmund to enrol for years without showing a visa, like other EU nationals. Because he was able to travel on a US passport, he never obtained a French passport. Now the University are demanding to see either a French passport or a student visa by October 1st or they say he will have to leave the course. The French consulate say a French passport will take over a month to process; the UK Border Agency say to get a student visa, he would have to go to the US and wait for two months, meaning he would miss the whole teaching portion of the course and have to start over in 2013. On the other hand, the University are content to charge him over £12,000 in overseas tuition fees. Immigration law says Edmund doesn't have to show a passport, only to "satisfactorily establish" his nationality. He can do this with his French birth certificate, tax records, and other documents showing birth and residence. Edmund's MP, Jenny Willot, and the lecturers' union, UCU have already written letters to Cardiff University supporting him. Cardiff University are scared by the UK Border Agency's recent revocation of London Metropolitan University's right to bring in international students. But the London Met decision is already being rolled back by the courts, and the UKBA visa rules are ideologically-motivated and vague. A government-backed witch hunt against a supposed tide of "bogus students" is driving away real students with skills the UK needs. We, the undersigned, ask Cardiff University Registry to enrol Dr Edmund Schluessel without delay and let him study to be a physics teacher in Wales.