What Cardiff University's Kazakhstan campus says about the state of British higher education

Would you go and work in Kazakhstan – if it meant saving your job? That’s the question quietly haunting staff at Cardiff University, according to union representatives.

The university recently green-lit a new Central Asian outpost in Astana. The university will not invest any capital into the new Kazakhstan campus, which will be paid for by the Kazakhstani investors. But it will provide staff.

Meanwhile, Cardiff is undergoing a brutal restructuring process at home. In January, it announced plans to make 400 staff redundant, and to close the university’s nursing, music and modern language schools.

Under serious union pressure – including rolling industrial action and a marking and assessment boycott – these plans have been rowed back.

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“[They say] ‘We want to be smaller, but let’s open a branch in Kazakhstan,’” says Dr Renata Medeiros Mirra, a lecturer in medical statistics at Cardiff University and a UCU rep.

“On one hand, these plans sound like a joke, right? [But on the other hand], they are telling us that it’s also the fact that they are opening in Kazakhstan that allows them to not make more people redundant, because they would be useful to teach out there.

“Not directly, but there has been a line that everyone picked up: Kazakhstan might save my job. And not just my job, but maybe if I teach in Kazakhstan, I can save other people’s jobs as well.”

In an all-staff update email on 15 May, vice chancellor Wendy Larner stated that the need for staffing in the Kazakhstan campus reduced the redundancy target by 34 full time equivalent roles.

Staff are torn. “These plans left us in a really, difficult position,” Dr Medeiros Mirra says.

But it’s an increasingly common situation across Britain’s cash-strapped tertiary sector. 

UK transnational education (TNE) offerings educate some 500,000 students across 228 countries and territories.

From branch outposts to franchising agreements, they take a variety of forms. Some 30 UK universities boast overseas campuses, enrolling students in Dubai, Malaysia, China and many other countries. 

Usually, these are sold as a form of global outreach: broadening access to the UK’s world class tertiary education institutions and thus enabling “global social mobility”. But there’s another, less altruistic goal: cash. 

The UK higher education system is increasingly reliant on international students. Domestic fees are capped, and public grants for education have plummeted since 2010 – so bumping up international fees is one of the few ways universities can generate more money. 

Last year, Universities UK found that a 5% fall in international admissions would leave more than half (51%) of universities in the red. A 20% fall would push four-fifths into deficit.

“International students used to be the icing on the cake when it came to university finances,” Nick Hillman, a former government adviser and director of the Higher Education Policy Institute think tank, said last year.

“They now serve as the very foundations holding up our university sector.”

But that foundation is starting to crack. A January 2024 government decision to ban international students from bringing dependents has triggered a sharp drop in overseas applications. More than 40% of UK universities are now bracing for a deficit – the highest rate ever recorded.

The cuts have been brutal. But Cardiff University’s original proposal stood out even in this bleak landscape: hundreds of jobs on the chopping block, entire schools facing closure, and compulsory redundancies looming.

The university cited a £31.2 million operational deficit in 2023–24. “It is no longer an option for us to continue as we are,” Larner told staff.

The union rejected that narrative. “There are ways out of this mess which protect the university and do not involve destroying hundreds of our members’ lives,” said Cardiff UCU president Dr Joey Whitfield. They questioned the need for cuts while the university has over £400m in reserves. The university counter that accessing the standing reserves would not be sustainable.

Following intense pressure, the university reduced its proposed job cuts to 286 in April, then again to 138 in May. Crucially, there will be no compulsory redundancies this year. But the reprieve may only be temporary.

How much of this scaling back is thanks to TNE ambitions is unclear. Cardiff has hinted at more overseas projects “in the pipeline” in China, India, Malaysia, Singapore and the US. These ventures promise fresh income – and potential job placements for UK-based staff.

Cardiff University insists it’s not forcing anyone overseas.

“We will not ask any staff to teach in Kazakhstan who do not wish to,” a spokesperson said “We may encourage some staff to volunteer to teach there. Several have already done so because of their interest in the region, because they have family close by or want to explore the possibility to teach in a different country and experience a different culture.”

According to Dr Medeiros-Mirra, this won’t mean permanent relocation – at least for now. She predicts that short secondments, around two months long, could become a common feature of academic work.

But there are lingering concerns. “As they hire more people, who are more junior, we’ve had some suggestions that they might want to change the contracts now and include clauses to teach in places like Kazakhstan,” she said. “We don’t know if, in the future, they might hire people to be there all the time.”

There are also equality and safety concerns. “We do have a lot of reservations, including things like EDI considerations, sending staff there that might be from vulnerable groups like LGBTQ+.”

While LGBTQ+ sexual activity is not illegal in Kazakhstan, the UK Foreign Office warns that “same-sex relationships are often not tolerated”.

Dr Medeiros-Mirra emphasised that the union is not opposed to international collaboration.
“The union are not against the idea of, obviously, international collaboration and teaching internationally, and we appreciate that right now, financially, some universities are having to make some maybe dubious decisions.”

“But we’re not entirely comfortable with the concept as it is.”

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