JACK McCONNELL, Scotland’s First Minister, will today announce moves to integrate overseas students more fully into the wider community.

The plan, details of which will be unveiled in Glasgow, is part of the Fresh Talent scheme aimed at enticing foreign students to stay and work in Scotland after they graduate.

Mr McConnell will also launch the Relocation Advisory Service, a one-stop shop for people looking for practical advice and support on living and working in Scotland. The service will cover a whole range of potential hurdles for would-be immigrants, from housing to health services.

The First Minister believes that helping undergraduates from overseas to integrate more easily with home-based students and local communities will stop them becoming satellite groups at university who mix socially only with students from the same part of the world and return home immediately after their studies.

Universities and colleges will receive funding for “mentoring” packages. These are designed to help foreign students to feel at home in Scotland in the crucial first few months after they arrive and entice them to stay on after graduation. It is unlikely, however, that this would mean an end to the present system of providing accommodation specifically for overseas students.

The Scottish Executive and Edinburgh City Council have also been asked by universities and colleges in Edinburgh to support a plan to set up a £30 million “academic village” where overseas students would be able to rent accommodation and bring their spouses and partners to live with them.

The thinking behind the plan is that it would allow these students to feel they have a more permanent home in Scotland than they do when they are living on their own in private and expensive rented accommodation.

Executive sources said the evidence suggested that overseas students tended to stay together in groups when they first came to university in Scotland. “There is a feeling that this is not always by choice but because of the way courses, accommodation and social activities are organised,” one official said. “We want to see if we can change that.”

Mr McConnell is also likely today to announce an extension of two-year visas for foreign graduates wanting to stay and work in Scotland to cover students qualifying with Higher National Diplomas.

The Fresh Talent initiative is aimed at meeting the fall in Scotland’s population, which has been described by Mr McConnell as “the greatest threat to the country’s future prosperity”. It aims to attract 8,000 skilled people to Scotland each year.

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