Voici l'extrait d'un article du Independent du 31 janvier 2011 :

Go to university abroad, Britain's top comprehensive tells its pupils

By Richard Garner, Education Editor

One of the country's top-performing state schools is urging its pupils to go university overseas next year to avoid the rise in tuition fees.

Hockerill Anglo-European College in Bishops Stortford, Hertfordshire, has appointed a student counsellor with the sole aim of helping pupils to apply for universities overseas because their fees will be cheaper than those in England from next year.

The 830-pupil school, which has been the top comprehensive school in exam league tables for several years, has also appointed a marketing company to scour the top 40 overseas universities for details of all the courses they teach in English.

Its decision prompted claims from a university lecturers' leader that it was a "source of shame" for the UK if bright youngsters were forced to study abroad.

Simon Dennis, the school's principal, believes universities in England, will be hit by a "double whammy" when tuition fees rise to up to £9,000 a year from September 2012.

He says many of the most talented youngsters will be put off studying in home universities by the increase and that his school's overseas drive will avoid some of his brightest pupils dropping out of university altogether.

In addition, restrictions on visas will mean a massive reduction in the number of overseas students universities can recruit. "The incredibly difficult visa requirements will make it more difficult to get students to come here to study," he said.

"We need to encourage our students to look beyond the UK boundaries. A lot of overseas institutions are converting their courses into English to attract that market."

The school, which offers the International Baccalaureate to all its pupils and was the top comprehensive in the new league table devised by Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, to show how many pupils would be eligible for his flagship English Baccalaureate, has already been inundated by brochures from overseas universities in Europe and even Beijing, that plan to run courses in English.

Many of them are already charging lower fees than English universities – a gap that will be exacerbated once the fee increase comes into force. Some German universities offer courses for a tenth of the cost of those in England. In Finland, the cost is a third less.

"We're already starting to see a drift away from home universities [in students' options]," Mr Dennis said. Many of the students opting to go abroad will be among the brightest of their year group. The school's pupils are also being helped to cope with studying abroad by a scheme that sees all students being offered a two-week exchange during which they live with families abroad and have to speak in their hosts' language during their stay.

Hockerill College, which is set to become one of the Coalition Government's flagship academies today, offers at least seven foreign languages to its pupils – French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Japanese and Mandarin.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/go-to-university-abroad-britains-top-comprehensive-tells-its-pupils-2199003.html