The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) estimates that the University of Melbourne’s wage underpayment bill could ultimately top $15 million. More than 1,000 casual academics have received a combined $9.5 million in backpay, and vice-chancellor Duncan Maskell has apologised for the incident. However, Annette Herrera of the NTEU says Maskell’s apology will “ring hollow” unless
Researchers from the Mitchell Institute have released interesting data on the state of Australian university finances. It turns out that university revenues are only down 6% from their pre-pandemic level in 2019. This follows an unbroken run of revenue growth that stretched all the way back to 1995: Moreover, despite universities continually crying poor, the
Earlier this week, Professor Suresh Cuganesan – deputy dean at the University of Sydney Business School – called for the federal government to give international students even greater post-study work rights as an incentive to encourage greater enrolment numbers: From the outset we need to signal that Australia is focused on the longer-term wellbeing and
Australia’s booming pre-COVID international education industry was built on the back of Chinese students: Now Beijing has dropped the hammer on Australia’s international student trade, freezing out our universities from setting up joint courses with Chinese universities which, before the pandemic, were a popular route for Chinese students to study in Australia: No Australian university
Professor Suresh Cuganesan – deputy dean at the University of Sydney Business School – has called for the federal government to give international students even greater post-study work rights as an incentive to encourage greater numbers: “Changes to post-study work rights of international students recently proposed by federal parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on Migration need
The University of Melbourne’s vice-chancellor Duncan Maskell has called for an overhaul of the nation’s research funding model. It is heavily subsidised by the fees paid of international students at present, but Maskell argues that there should be increased direct federal government funding. Maskell contends that this would reduce the pressure on universities to find
The Lowy Institute has unknowingly proven why the often spruiked $40 billion of education ‘exports’ – equating to more than $60,000 per international student – was a giant lie and massively exaggerated: Early changes to relax visa requirements and the cap on working hours for students in essential industries led to criticism that these measures
In 2019, Dr Gerd Schroeder-Turk – Murdoch University’s only academic representative on the Senate (the University’s highest governing body) – appeared on ABC’s Four Corners and criticised Murdoch’s international student entry and teaching standards, which drove a 92% surge in international students numbers between 2017 and 2018. Dr Schroeder-Turk’s claims were corroborated by two other
The Australian’s resident edu-migration lobby mouthpiece, Tim Dodd, has penned another puff piece calling on Australia’s universities to better look after international students: “In 2014 education exports were worth $19.8bn. Five years later, in 2019, they had more than doubled to $40.3bn. It was a gold rush”… “When students do finally return to Australia –
Anyone still arguing that immigration has no impact on wages only has to look over the pond to New Zealand, where Jacinda Ardern’s government is being lobbied to reboot immigration to relieve rising wage costs: “The dairy, horticulture, housing, services, health and broader public sector have all reported acute staff shortages, and called on the government
The Australian’s mouthpiece for the edu-migration lobby, Tim Dodd, reports that Australia’s education exports have plunged by a third: Australia’s education exports have plunged by a third due to the international border closure, with revenue dropping to $26.7bn in the year to June, down from $40.3bn recorded in calendar 2019. Australian Bureau of Statistics figures
For years we have argued that Australia’s international education industry is really an immigration play, whereby migrants effectively purchase access to work and live in Australia by studying at an Australian institution. The immigration play has been developed jointly by the federal government and education industry via: The federal government offering the most generous work
The Australian has released a report decrying the ‘collapse’ in international student numbers caused by the COVID-19 pandemic: “Australia has lost more than 100,000 foreign students in the past financial year at a cost of nearly $6bn to the economy”. “There are more than 472,000 holders of Australian student visas, including those inside and outside
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
Two years ago, the regulator of Australia’s higher education institutions – the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) – held workshops around the nation in a bid to stamp-out so-called “contract cheating”, which had proliferated across Australia’s universities: The aim of the workshops is to provide strategies for institutions to promote academic integrity, address
The Australian’s higher education shill, Tim Dodd, has spent years writing propaganda about the immense ‘benefits’ of Australia’s international education (read migration) industry, while always ignoring the costs. Today Dodd seems to have experienced a mea culpa, admitting the international education model was broken all along: It is, thus, obvious that Australia’s international student business
If you want more proof that Australia’s universities have become obsessed with overseas profits at the expense of Australian citizens, look no further than this self-serving drivel from Dr Thanh Pham – senior lecturer in globalisation leadership and policy at Monash University: “Post-study career prospects have become an important influencing factor in international students’ decisions
Bank of Queensland CEO George Frazis has emphasised the need to prioritise the return of foreign ‘skilled’ workers and international students to alleviate so-called chronic labour shortages: Mr Frazis… stressed that Australia had to address labour shortages and other underlying issues by having firm plans to expedite the return of skilled workers and overseas students.
This is how sick our tertiary sector is. Via Human Rights Watch: Australian universities have failed to protect the academic freedom of students from China and of academics who criticize the Chinese Communist Party, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Pro-Beijing supporters and the Chinese government have also harassed and intimidated those who express
The Age published an interesting article over the weekend showing that the number of Chinese students enrolling to study in Victoria has only fallen marginally since the coronavirus began: Chinese students have been willing to study remotely while Australia’s borders are closed… Higher education enrolments from China to Victoria have declined 5.74 per cent in
Yesterday’s NSW Budget repeated the myth that international students drive job creation across the economy: The number of international students arriving to New South Wales was down 99.8 per cent in February 2021 compared to a year before. International student enrolments were down around 18 per cent through the year to February 2021, with commencements
The South Australian Government’s plan to lodge 160 international students at a time in quarantine facilities at Parafield Airport has been approved by the federal government: Medi-hotels in the CBD will continue to be used by Australians returning from overseas. [CHO] Professor Spurrier said… “the facility it actually an ideal quarantine facility because it is
MB has comprehensively debunked Australia’s claimed $40 billion of education exports, which are wildly exaggerated. In a nutshell, the majority of education ‘exports’ comes in the form of expenditure on goods and services in Australia, as explicitly acknowledged in a recent Mitchell Institute report: The majority of the $20 billion loss of economic value is
The Australian’s Judith Sloan has penned a terrific article explaining why the “Tidal wave of overseas students must stop”. Sloan claims that senior administrators at Australia’s universities are relentless rent-seekers and will take every opportunity to lobby the federal government to open the nation’s international borders to foreign students. Instead, Sloan insists that any decision
IDP Education CEO Andrew Barkla has told the Universities Australia conference that the federal government needs to provide a clear message on when and how Australia’s borders will open. Barkla said Australia was losing international student market share to other countries because it does not have a clear plan at this stage. He said that
The South Australian Government has lodged a plan with the federal government to let 160 international students at a time quarantine in separate quarantine facilities at Parafield Airport: The government claims the international student arrivals would not impact the quota for returning Australians, which will continue to be housed in cramped city medi-hotels: South Australian
Denis Blight – former CEO of international education placement organisation, IDP Education Limited, and a visitor in the History Department of the Australian National University – has penned a self-serving article in The Australian calling for policy makers to “increase and sustain” international student enrolments. The main arguments of the article are as follows: International
In February, Beijing identified the collapse of Australian pedagogical standards driven by international students: The Chinese Ministry of Education (CME) complained that Aussie universities are delivering sub-standard courses in China JVs. According to CME, universities have under-invested and failed to deliver quality Australian staff numbers. An audit of the courses was forthcoming. The Chinese courses
MB has long argued that the higher education sector’s lust for international students has damaged pedagogical standards, eroding the quality of education and experience for local students. Our claim is evidenced by the following observations: The dramatic rise in the number of students to academic staff at Australia’s universities; and Domestic students being forced into
A new survey shows that nearly three quarters (73%) of Australians believe that Australia’s international border should remain largely closed until at least mid-2022, or until the pandemic is under control globally: Yet, with tens-of-thousands of Australian citizens remaining stranded abroad, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said that the return of international students was now the
