Dr Daniel Kyereko, Lecturer in Education and Social Justice with the Department of Education at the University of York
As we think about what social change for public good might mean in responding to some of our societal challenges, migration offers an important place to reflect. Perhaps we need to look beyond the search for new solutions and ask more fundamental questions: how have we come to understand migration, whose perspectives have shaped that understanding, and are we asking the right questions? These questions are both personal and academic for me. I have experienced migration through my own journey across countries, education and work, and I now research migration and education. I therefore encounter migration as something I study and something I have lived. My experience is only one among many different migration journeys, but these positions have made me increasingly curious about how we understand and categorise human movement.
Human beings have always moved for work, education, family, safety and opportunity. Movement has shaped societies for centuries. Yet migration continues to occupy an extraordinary place in contemporary political and public debate. After decades of research, changing policies and political attention, why does migration continue to appear as a problem without resolution? Are our policies inadequate? Are the forces producing migration too complex? Are we addressing global processes through national and local solutions? Are some forms of movement more readily accepted than others? Or might some of the questions through which we understand migration themselves need reconsideration?
Migration as part of social and economic change
Migrants make important social and economic contributions to the UK. International students are a clear example. Research estimates that international students starting UK higher education in 2021/22 generated £41.9 billion in economic benefits, with a net benefit of £37.4 billion after estimated costs. Their contribution extends beyond university fees to local economies across the UK. HEPI: International students boost UK economy by £41.9 billion Migrant care workers have also become important to adult social care. In 2023/24, around 105,000 international recruits joined the sector in England, helping to increase the workforce at a time when recruitment and retention remained difficult. Their contribution is not simply economic; it is visible in the everyday care of older people, people with disabilities and others who need support. Skills for Care: international recruitment and the care workforce . The NHS provides another example. In June 2025, around 325,000 NHS staff in England-about one in five reported a non-British nationality. Migration is therefore not only discussed in relation to pressure on public services; migrants are also among the people sustaining those services. House of Commons Library: NHS staff from overseas
These examples raise a simple question: if migration is so deeply embedded in our universities, care system and NHS, why does its framing as a problem remain so powerful?
Why does the negative framing persist?
Media and political narratives often discuss migration through numbers, borders, control and pressure on public services. Concerns about housing, employment and economic insecurity can also become associated with migration, even when their causes are more complex. There is therefore a question about how migration is used within political debates. At a time of growing far-right and populist mobilisation around immigration, we need to ask why migration becomes a focal point for wider concerns about public services, economic insecurity and national identity, when the causes of these challenges often extend well beyond migration itself.
There is also a crisis framing, particularly when migration from Africa enters public debate in the Global North. Attention often turns to refugees, irregular migration, dangerous journeys, conflict and displacement. These are important realities, but they can obscure a much broader picture of African mobility, including movement within the continent for work, education, trade and family life. I highlighted this concern in an interview with the BBC, where I reflected on how African migration often attracts greater international attention when it is associated with crisis. Colonial histories and global inequalities may also matter. They have shaped borders, citizenship and relationships between countries and continue to raise questions about whose movement is accepted and whose is problematised.
When does mobility become migration?
Perhaps part of the problem lies in how we categorise movement. We celebrate tourism, international education, academic mobility and global talent. Governments and universities actively encourage some of these forms of movement. Yet other forms become subjects of control and concern. International students illustrate this tension. Universities recruit them through the language of internationalisation, diversity and global talent. But when an international student completes their studies and seeks to remain and work, they can enter a different conversation about immigration and net migration. The person has not changed, but the way their movement is understood has. The question may not be about migration, but who moves, from where, for what purpose and how that movement is valued.
Are we seeking local solutions to global processes?
Migration becomes visible locally: in schools, workplaces, housing, healthcare and communities. Responses therefore tend to focus on integration, public services, employment and border control. Yet the reasons people move often extend beyond national borders. Economic inequalities, labour demand, education, conflict, family relationships, environmental change and historical relationships between countries all shape movement. The person who arrives may therefore be the most visible part of a much longer story. Responding to migration may require us to look beyond the point of arrival and engage more seriously with the conditions and relationships that shape why, how and where people move.
What place for migration beyond 2030?
These questions become important as discussions begin about the future of education beyond the Sustainable Development Goals. Migration and displacement have featured in global education debates, particularly through refugees, conflict and crisis. But human mobility extends much further. As we imagine education beyond 2030, should migration continue to be approached mainly as a disruption to which education systems respond, or should human mobility be recognised as a normal feature of the societies for which education systems are designed? This also raises questions about whose experiences shape that future. What might the UK learn from experiences of mobility and education in Africa and elsewhere in the Global South? What might these contexts learn from the UK and from one another? What happens when knowledge about migration is allowed to travel in more than one direction?
In the end, if migration continues to be framed as a societal challenge, perhaps this is because there is no single explanation and no single solution. For social change for public good, we need spaces where researchers, policymakers, practitioners, communities and people with lived experience can bring different perspectives into conversation, including across countries and regions. Such conversations need to go beyond asking how migration should be controlled or managed. Bringing these perspectives together may help us see both the problem and the possibilities differently.
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this blog are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policies or views of the University of York
Photo credit Bernd 📷 Dittrich (@hdbernd)