Student visa ban will shut the door on talent

The Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford. ‘We work very hard to raise funding for scholarships, and we are dismayed that our scholarships dedicated to future leaders from Sudan and Myanmar will now lie fallow.’ Photograph: View Pictures Ltd/Alamy

The government’s decision to halt visas for students from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar and Sudan (UK puts emergency brake on study visas for four countries’ nationals, 3 March) risks shutting out talent, experience and leadership that will strengthen and stabilise countries around the world.

Shabana Basij-Rasikh was just six years old when the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan. She came to the Blavatnik School of Government in 2019 after founding the School of Leadership, Afghanistan, providing quality education for Afghan girls. At the Blavatnik School, she worked with classmates to map 130 million girls out of school across the world and design policies to accelerate their access to education. This work highlights the role of UK universities as hubs for solutions to global challenges.