Private schools have joined lobbying efforts to open Australia’s international border to international students.
They want governments to charter flights to bring them into the country and for them to be allowed to quarantine with parents or school staff.
From The Age:
Phil Honeywood, chief executive of the International Education Association of Australia, urged the Victorian government to “show some flexibility on equity grounds”…
“Whether we can have some flexibility from the Victorian government, allowing for example homestay quarantine where they could be effectively isolated in a residential setting or a boarding school-type setting which many of the independent schools have anyway”…
Oakleigh Grammar is part of the group of private schools seeking government approval to bring back foreign students. Combined they are licensed to educate about 3850 international students.
Obviously, bringing thousands of international students into Australia and allowing them to quarantine at residential addresses would dramatically increase the risk of community transmission of COVID-19. These types of arrangements are far less secure than quarantine in hotels, which have experienced frequent virus leaks, resulting in costly shutdowns and border closures.
It is also unconscionable to bring foreign students into Australia when there are still tens-of-thousands of Australians stranded abroad and unable to come home due to strict arrival caps and the exorbitant cost of flights and quarantine.
Finally, it is hard to take the private schools’ special pleading seriously when government funding for independent schools has grown far quicker than public schools over the past decade:
School fees have also grown at nearly twice the rate of inflation:
Once upon a time these private schools managed fine teaching locals without such extreme funding. Now they are crying poor and demanding the return of the international student cash cow.
Private schools’ addiction to international students also risks eroding teaching standards.
You can easily imagine circumstances where teachers in classrooms are required to pause repeatedly to explain concepts to non-English speaking students. Or, in the case of Chinese international students, be prohibited from teaching blacklisted western values or other topics sensitive to the Communist Party of China (e.g. Hong Kong, Tibet, or Taiwan).
On nearly every level, opening the border to international students is a bad idea. Our governments must reject the special pleading from the edu-migration lobby.
