OUR GRADES
NOT VISAS
Who are we?
Founded by Ahmed Alhindi, with the help of the Maryhill Integration Network and JustRight Scotland, we are a national campaign fighting for the rights of migrant students & asylum seekers denied access to higher education in Scotland. We engage directly with the Scottish Government and help make a real change to the legislation. We have been featured on the BBC, inews, and STV.
Our Journey
Born in Feb 2022, the campaign was founded by an S6 student struggling to go to university because he didn't have a settled status—Ahmed.
In April 2022, Ahmed worked with the Maryhill Integration Network and JustRight Scotland to launch a survey to determine the number of students who were in the same position.
By June 2022, we made two public appearances at local events in Glasgow. The guests included MSPs such as Paul Sweeney, Bob Doris & Pam Duncan-Glancy, and councillors such as Bailie Norman MacLeod, Zen Ghani & Holly Bruce.
The Ola Jasim v Scottish Ministers [2022] CSOH 64 was a 'landmark' case that found the SAAS residency rules, which deprived migrant students of funding, to be unlawful in light of the European Convention of Human Rights. As a result, the Scottish Government started a consultation in January 2023 to change the residency rules.
At the CPG on Migration's final meeting of 2022, we highlighted the work we had done, including case studies and findings from the survey, and proposed close collaboration with former/current migrant students and organisations active in the field. We also suggested the Scottish Government build on our existing research to have an accurate number of those affected.
We were invited to UCU's Annual Migrant Members Conference in December 2022. We informed the audience of migrant student's situation in Scotland and got their full support for our cause.
In January 2023, we attended the Universities of Sanctuary Annual Conference. We spoke of our key achievements and invited attendees to keep an eye out for our website.
OGNV's Conference 2023
We had our first-ever conference on March 8th, 2023. We heard from Ahmed Alhindi of OGNV, Francesca Sella of JRS, Pinar Aksu of MIN, and many more! We had a roundtable discussion with the audience about migrant students and asylum seekers' access to higher education in Scotland. See JRS' coverage of the conference here.
Stay in the Know
Get in touch
Feel free to reach out to us on: info@ognv.org.uk