The Education in London of Refugees from Foreign Universities

Abstract

A FEW weeks ago (NATURE, November 26) we gave an account of what is being done to establish an informal Belgian university at Cambridge, for students of the University of Louvain and other universities affected by existing military operations. Both the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge have, so far as we understand, offered a generous hospitality on a large scale to both the staff and students of Belgium universities, but while affording them every facility for quiet study, have not attempted to bring them systematically within their own system. The University of London, on the other hand, is putting at the service of refugee students not merely the teaching facilities of its two incorporated colleges, but also the right to enter its degree courses and to obtain its degrees on exceptionally favourable terms. It is allowing a partial or total remission of fees both for full teaching courses in expensive laboratory subjects, such as engineering and preliminary and intermediate medicine, and for entrance to examinations. It has further made special concessions as to both the matriculation and intermediate examinations, which will make it possible for the students to answer questions in French, and have their knowledge tested on the lines of education they have previously received in their own universities. If the Privy Council approve of the Amendment of Statutes which the Senate of the University is referring to them, a clever student who has come over to London from Belgian or French universities this autumn, will be able to pass the examinations in lieu of matriculation and intermediate by the early spring, and enter at once on his final course.