Simon Marginson, professor of higher education at the University of Oxford, claims Australia’s international student intake “may never recover” if COVID-19 restrictions continue throughout 2021:
“If the pandemic is over by the end of 2021, international enrolments will recover significantly in 2022 in Australia but it will take five years or more for Australia to recover the 2019 enrolment, and it will take longer to recover market share…In fact, Australia may not recover market share in the longer run,” he said.
“My sense is that international education in Australia is in deep, deep trouble. That means higher education is in deep trouble and scientific research is in equally deep trouble because this is heavily financed from international student fees.”
Professor Marginson, a former professor of higher education at the University of Melbourne, said “there is now a major forking of the way” between the British and Australian higher education systems, because Australia has closed its borders during the pandemic, while the UK has not…
“My political nose tells me that [Australia’s] Morrison government is not greatly worried about the declining position of university science and still less about the overall position of universities in Australia. It knows that the decline of international education means that the economy will take a hit, but with this government, politics comes before economics,” Professor Marginson said…
“After 20 golden years carried along partly by Chinese students, a bad period is coming up for Australian universities; in fact, it has already arrived,” he said.
What a load of rubbish.
Australian universities’ concentration of international students should never have been allowed to reach such absurd levels, at roughly 2.5 times that of the UK and triple Canada’s:
The downsides have been massive, with entry and teaching standards crushed, and CCP influence running rampant, threating freedom of speech.
These downsides were captured neatly in the recent South Australian Independent Commissioner Against Corruption (ICAC) survey (see here), which raised deep concern around the low entry standards pertaining to international students, alongside pressure to pass failing students and widespread cheating.
This ICAC survey also revealed the widespread belief among university staff that the pursuit of international student dollars is corrupting universities:
The ‘corporatisation’ or ‘monetisation’ of the university was also the subject of a large volume of feedback (126 respondents). These comments typically described the university as overly focused on money, student fees and the enrolment of full fee-paying students. Seven participants also raised concerns about Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for their university which encourage poor practices and behaviours to meet benchmarks…
“The key vulnerability the university faces is its over-reliance on international students’ fees. This impacts on potential corruption in recruitment, enrolment, assessment, academic integrity, student support, misconduct processes and graduation. It is common for senior managers to disregard problems…and make the problem one about ‘poor teaching’ or ‘low quality assessment/curriculum’.”
A lower intake of international students would unambiguously be a good development. In fact, Australia should specifically target lower numbers of higher quality students by:
- Lifting entry standards (especially English-language proficiency);
- Lifting financial requirements; and
- Removing the link between studying, work rights and permanent residency.
These reforms would significantly improve student quality, would lift export revenues per student, and would lower enrolment numbers to sensible and sustainable levels.
Sadly, the rent-seekers in the edu-migration industry will vigorously oppose these sensible reforms.
