The Victorian Government’s revised hotel quarantine program resumed yesterday after being paused for five months last year following the destructive second wave outbreak and again from mid-February after virus again leaked into the community prompting another hard lockdown. Thus, after being closed for roughly half the time since its inception in late March 2020 after
The Mitchell Institute for Education and Health Policy at Victoria University has undertaken analysis for Fairfax, which forecasts that the number of international students studying in Australia will more than halve by January 2022 from pre-pandemic levels: The Mitchell Institute argues that this reduction in student numbers will have a devastating impact on university finances
Education Minister Alan Tudge has told The Age that the success of the federal government’s COVID-19 vaccination rollout will determine when international students are able to return to Australia. He says it is unlikely that foreign students will be allowed to return in large numbers until 2022, although universities may be able to enrol limited numbers
Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, we have witnessed Australia’s universities warn of financial catastrophe from the collapse of international students. We also saw universities cry foul after they were denied the JobKeeper wage subsidy. Fast forward to today and it appears the universities were crying wolf, with many posting healthy surpluses. Earlier this
It is fair to say that one of the biggest beneficiaries of the long boom in international student fees was Australian university vice-chancellors. From 2013 to 2019, aggregate fees from international students soared 133%, from $6.8 billion to $15.9 billion: Vice-chancellor remuneration also ballooned, with vice-chancellors earning well over $1 million on average in 2019,
Anyone doubting that Australia’s international education industry is a backdoor immigration scam or that education ‘exports’ are wildly exaggerated only needs to read yesterday’s article published in Fairfax, entitled “Private colleges pay student recruiters up to $300,000 in bonuses”. According to this report, private colleges are paying local education agents thousands of dollars in commissions
For years we have argued that Australia’s international education industry is really an immigration scam, whereby migrants effectively purchase access to work and live in Australia by studying at an Australian institution. The immigration scam has been developed jointly by the federal government and education industry via: The federal government offering the most generous work
Last year, the former vice-chancellor of Macquarie University, Professor Steven Schwartz, admitted that many international students only study in Australia to gain working rights and permanent residency: [Professor Schwartz] said foreign students flock to courses likely to lead to jobs and permanent residency… “Permanent residency is one of the main motivations to study in Australia’…
For years the education industry and state governments have talked up the immense value of international student exports, which the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) claims was worth $37.3 billion in 2019. These exports comprised: 1) $15.9 billion of tuition fees; and 2) $21.4 billion of goods & services expenditure, as illustrated in the next
Late last year, the NSW Government lodged a plan to use one third of its 3,000 hotel quarantine places to import international students, with universities (read taxpayers) to pick up the cost of quarantine. The plan was later abandoned after the state was hit with the New Year COVID outbreak, as well as backlash from
MB has regularly argued that our universities’ rabid pursuit of international student fees has damaged entry and teaching standards, eroding the quality of education provided to domestic students. This claim is evidenced by: The dramatic increase in the number of students to academic staff; Domestic students being forced into group assignments with non-English speaking foreign
Earlier this week, the chief lobbyist for the international education industry, Phil Honeywood, called on the federal government to run charter flights and separate quarantine facilities to bring international students into the country: “There’s no reason why we can’t have charter flights bringing the students in, walking them across the tarmac into separate quarantine facilities
Melanie Macfarlane, founding member of the International Student Education Agents Association and member of the Migration Institute of Australia, has penned an article highlighting how the international education industry is the key feeder of the ‘Big Australia’ mass immigration policy. Macfarlane basically admits that Australia’s international education industry has only grown so big because studying
International students have accounted for around 25% of Australian universities’ revenue in recent years. Federal Education Minister Alan Tudge used a speech on Friday to argue that this business model is unsustainable in the post-pandemic environment, and that COVID-19 has given the nation’s universities an opportunity to shift their focus to educating Australians: “These disruptions
China’s trade war on itself via Australia has steadily worsened over the past year. It began with coal, shifted to barley, then moved quickly to lobsters and other rural products, followed by wine. A total of some $20bn in Australian exports to China annually. Yet none of these is a problem at the macro level.
For years MB has questioned the odious links between our universities over-reliance on international student fees and university rankings. Basically, the federal government and our universities created a system that encouraged strong growth in full fee paying international students by: The federal government granting the world’s most generous student visa working rights and opportunities for
Former Victorian Premier turned chancellor of Victoria University and chair of the International Education Advisory Council of Victoria, John Brumby, has penned a long-winded opinion piece in Fairfax defending the extreme concentration of international students at Australian universities and calling for policy makers to reinvigorate the industry. Brumby’s key points are as follows: International education
Only a week ago, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews called on the federal government to reduce the number of international arrivals into Australia to relieve pressure on state quarantine systems amid new highly infectious virus strains and regular outbreaks: “With this UK strain – and we haven’t even got on to South Africa yet, because it’s
Beijing continues to deliver the Australian national interest ahead of the Australian Government. Following its shutting down of capital flows into Australian property. Following the projection of a virus that has shut down immigration. Following its triggering of an income boom via a trade war on itself, and pushing Australian exporters to diversify. Following a
Mark Lucas, the chairman of the peak lobby for education agents working in Australia called the International Students Education Agents Association (ISEAA), has called on the Morrison Government to “reinstate the link between international students and immigration” to reinvigorate the edu-migration industry. “Australia can’t survive without migration. Our birth rate is getting to below replacement
Yesterday afternoon I was interviewed by Liam Bartlett from Radio 6PR Perth about the “corrupted stinking edifice” of Australia’s international student trade. The interview segment commences below at the 22.30 minute mark and runs until 33.40. Enjoy!
Dr Peter Hurley from the Mitchell Institute estimates the number of international students in Melbourne’s CBD has fallen by 8,900 because of the pandemic. With thousands of student apartments already sitting empty, and occupancy rates falling by around 80%, Hurley says that 2021 will probably be worse for the student accommodation sector than 2020. Meanwhile,
The CCP trade war on Australia is such a wonderful development I don’t know where to look half of the time. So far it has delivered Australia a reinvigorated ANZUS and US First Fleet deployment; an income boom, and the very accelerated export decoupling that we need but can’t do owing to CCP corruption of
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
Scaremongering over the ‘collapse’ in international student numbers continues to ramp up with the edu-migration lobby now warning that Australia will lose market share to the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States unless we quickly open our international border to students. The mainstream media is also awash with articles featuring ‘heartbroken’ students shattered that
Earlier this week, a shocking video was posted on Twitter of an international student being slapped by her employer for demanding she get paid her promised $10 an hour (well below the minimum wage): She’s an international student who worked in a bubble tea shop located at Adelaide CBD,being paid $10/hr for couple days but
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
Readers will recall that for well over a year, the University of Queensland (UQ) was plunged into local and international infamy by its inappropriate relationship with the local Confucius Institute and Chinese Consulate. In particular, the Universities’ reputation was badly tarnished by its treatment of Hong Kong protestors (and one formerly obscure student named Drew
UNSW’s outgoing vice-chancellor, Ian Jacobs, has “no regrets” about a five-year binge on international students that saw the university’s budget expand by 40%. From Times Higher Education: UNSW was among the Australian institutions that accelerated their overseas recruitment from 2014, after domestic enrolments had plateaued. The university’s income from international students soared from A$378 million
Chief lobbyist for the international education industry, Phil Honeywood, continues to pressure Australia’s governments to roll out the welcome mat to international students, accusing governments of double standards: International Education Association of Australia chief executive officer Phil Honeywood said there was a double standard with Victoria and others “moving heaven and earth for tennis players,
