What Motivates Students from Sierra Leone to Choose to Study in the UK Essay

What Motivates Students from Sierra Leone to Choose to Study in the UK - Essay Example This essay declares that the British cultural affinity is the fundamental factor why students choose the United Kingdom as the overseas education destination. In a way, it bred other factors such as cultural, political and economic factors considering the period of colonialism. This paper stresses that political motivation is one of the primary reasons of the first wave of Sierra Leone students to study in UK. As growing desire for freedom permeated, studying in UK was seen as a tool to advance Sierra Leone’s cause. David Killingray documented this fact citing that students and their organizations played an important role in the anti-colonial struggle. The British tolerance on conflicting views and ideologies provided an environment for Sierra Leone students during their stay that contributed to their development. In effect, Britain and its freewheeling system and liberal educational institutions became training grounds for future political leaders of Sierra Leone. For instance, the current President of the country, Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, was educated in the UK. He took his higher education at the Cardiff College of Technology and Commerce and his Bachelor’s degree in Economics at the University College Aberystwyth, Wales back in 1959. The UK’s Council of Validating Universities refer to these franchising agreements as where â€Å"a degree awarding body judges a programme of study offered in another institution overseas to be appropriate to lead to a qualification of that degree awarding body.