Earlier this month, Victorian university annual reports were tabled in state parliament, showing that nearly every institution improved its financial position in 2021 compared to the previous year. The standout was the giant Monash University, which posted a record surplus of $416 million for 2021. NSW university annual reports were tabled tabled in state parliament
History doesn’t repeat but it sure does rhyme. In May 2019, Inside Story’s Tim Colebatch questioned why so many Nepalese were coming to Australia given Nepal is so poor, shares no cultural ties with Australia, and does not speak English: In 2017–18, one in every 1500 inhabitants of Nepal emigrated to Australia. In an era
With the federal election in the rearview mirror, chief executive of lobby group the International Education Association of Australia, Phil Honeywood, has called on the federal government to make Australia more attractive to international students by fulfilling “the implicit promise of pathways to migration”: A major policy area no political party has dared to address
Over the decade leading up to COVID, the exploitation of international students became systemic across the Australian economy. Multiple reports bemoaned the rampant wage theft from international students, especially from migrant employers of the same nationality. For example, the 2016 Senate Committee report, A National Disgrace: The Exploitation of Temporary Work Visa Holders, noted that
Late last year, the Morrison Government announced reforms to visa arrangements to ensure a “rapid return of international students”. The reforms included: granting a two year Temporary Graduate visa to Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector graduates; and extending the temporary graduate visa from two to three years for masters by coursework graduates. According to the
Monash University’s annual report shows that it has posted a record surplus of $416 million for 2021. In fact, La Trobe was Victoria’s only university to post a deficit for 2021. Ben Eltham of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) says the size of the surplus is “frankly obscene” given that Monash retrenched 267 employees
Recall that the Morrison Government in late November announced its intention to import at least 200,000 migrant workers into Australia by July 2022: “We are working on a figure of 200,000, it may well be more than that but we will be actively looking to bring as many people into Australia as soon as we
In 2019, Drew Pavlou – the student facing expulsion from the University of Queensland (UQ) over its sordid links with the Chinese Communist Party – explained how China has infiltrated Australia’s universities, most notably via its operation of Confucius Institutes: Confucius Institutes, educational institutes funded and run by the Chinese party-state, have come under intense scrutiny
In December, the Morrison Government announced reforms to visa arrangements to ensure a “rapid return of international students”. The reforms included: granting a two year Temporary Graduate visa to Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector graduates; and extending the temporary graduate visa from two to three years for masters by coursework graduates. The great immigration scab
Treasury budget papers predict that services exports will rise 12% in 2022-23 as international students and foreign tourist begin to return to Australia, before increasing by 29% in 2023-24. International students pumped $24 billion into the economy each year before the pandemic hit, but even though 130,000 students have arrived in Australia since borders opened
According to research commissioned by IDP canvassing the views of more than 10,000 students, Australia is no longer the preferred destination for international students: Canada has consolidated its spot as the most in-demand destination with one in four students putting it at the top of their list. Following Canada in pole position, was the US
The Department of Education has released international student enrolment data for the year ended January 2022, which shows there were 364,600 international students enrolled across Australia’s various education institutions, down 31% from the 529,100 students enrolled immediately prior to the pandemic in January 2020: All categories of educational institution has been hit by the decline
In December, the Morrison Government announced reforms to visa arrangements to ensure a “rapid return of international students”. The reforms included: granting a two year Temporary Graduate visa to Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector graduates; and extending the temporary graduate visa from two to three years for masters by coursework graduates. Shortly afterwards, the Morrison
For years I have argued that Australia’s international education exports (presented below) are wildly exaggerated for the simple reason that the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) wrongly counts expenditure in Australia by international students with money earned by working in Australia. This type of expenditure is by definition not an export since the money has
Australian universities have rejected a push by the federal government for more diversity in international students intakes, likening it to ‘racial profiling’: The government late last year raised the possibility of a diversity index, which would force universities to publicly disclose the country of origin of their international students to “improve transparency of diversity”. Then
Last year, multiple major Australian universities were accused of widespread wage theft from their highly casualised workforce. The Select Committee on Job Security has found that university casuals are less likely to win permanent employment than cleaners, despite the March 2021 amendment to the Fair Work Act, which required employers to grant ongoing employment to their
In one article, The Australian’s higher education shill, Tim Dodd, has neatly highlighted how international education ‘exports’ are wildly exaggerated. On the one hand, Dodd argued that international education generated a whopping $10.4 billion in exports over the December quarter of 2019: In the December quarter of 2019, the last “normal” quarter before Covid put
Over recent months, the Morrison Government has introduced multiple incentives to ensure a “rapid return of international students”, including: granting a two year Temporary Graduate visa to Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector graduates; extending the temporary graduate visa from two to three years for masters by coursework graduates; uncapping the number of hours international
Last week, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released its December trade data, which showed that education exports have nearly halved from a peak of $40.3 billion in the 2019 calendar year to $22.5 billion in the 2021 calendar year: These education “exports” are comprised of goods & services spending by international students (60% share)
Kate Clayton, an academic at La Trobe University, has published an article in the Australian Institute of International Affairs claiming consecutive governments have cut funding to universities, which has forced their over-reliance on international student fees: Consecutive government funding cuts have forced universities to become reliant on international students for funding. As universities restructure in
Nancy Arthur – Dean of Research at UniSA Business – has penned a scaremongering article in The Conversation warning of economic catastrophe from the reduction in international students: Consider what Australia lost when so many international students were gone. In 2019, they contributed an estimated $40.3 billion to the economy. International education supported about 250,000 jobs in Australia. Border
Several years ago, the Australian Population Research Institute (APRI) released a report, based on 2016 Census data, revealing that most recently arrived skilled migrants (i.e. that arrived between 2011 and 2016) cannot find professional jobs. Specifically, only 24% of skilled migrants from Non-English-Speaking-Countries (who comprised 84% of the total skilled migrant intake) were employed as
Last month, the Morrison Government announced reforms to visa arrangements to ensure a “rapid return of international students”. The reforms included: granting a two year Temporary Graduate visa to Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector graduates; and extending the temporary graduate visa from two to three years for masters by coursework graduates. Days later, the Times
Australia’s education and immigration ministers released a joint press release announcing reforms to visa arrangements to “ensure the rapid return of international students”. The reforms included: granting a two year Temporary Graduate visa to Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector graduates; and extending the temporary graduate visa from two to three years for masters by
Research by education policy think tank the Mitchell Institute suggests that Australia and New Zealand can expect the “flow” of overseas students to return to pre-pandemic levels once international borders re-open. However, the Institute suggests that it could take some time to achieve the same number of overseas students that studied in Australia before the
