The South China Morning Post (SCMP) reports that four out of five affluent Chinese families are shunning Western universities amid strained foreign relations and negative sentiment towards the COVID-19 pandemic: After being inundated with news about the worsening coronavirus pandemic and rising tensions between China and the West for months, Beijinger Joe Gao… who runs
Via the ABC: International student visa applications from outside Australia have dropped off a cliff, raising serious concerns of an increasing budget black hole for Australian higher education. Just 72,397 student visa applications have been received from prospective overseas students from January to July, 40 per cent of the total for the same period last
This is how corrupted Aussie universities now are. At Domain: A legal definition of academic freedom that some universities say will make it harder for them to discipline racist or sexist academics will be included in the Morrison government’s proposed university funding laws in exchange for One Nation’s support for the bill. …One Nation wants
The erosion of Australian university teaching standards was under the spotlight at The Weekend Australian: Universities are using years-old lectures and sharing them across different courses, leaving the nation’s students worried about the quality of their education and future job prospects… Students fear quality standards are slipping and are questioning why they are paying high
The NSW Government has flagged a plan to bring back large numbers of international students for the beginning of the 2021 academic year: NSW Minister for Jobs, Investment and Tourism Stuart Ayres told an international education summit in Sydney on Wednesday that… he had learned “lots of lessons about how to house 60,000 people in
The conduct of Australia’s Universities continues to raise eyebrows. Take Melbourne University, whose vice-chancellor Duncan Maskell earns a hefty $1.5 million salary. Yet Maskell’s university has been overwhelmingly staffed by insecure casual workers: The rush towards insecure work has been led by the University of Melbourne, Australia’s richest tertiary institution, which listed reserves of $4.43
In 2016, the former Turnbull Government introduced a new visa class that enabled international students and their guardians access to Australian schools, along with the ability to buy property ahead of applying for permanent residency (see here, here and here). At the time of introduction, I labelled this visa “one of the worst policies that
The CCP lackeys are on the run again at UQ: BREAKING: UQ has attempted to ban our anti-CCP “Drew Pavlou Fighting Team” from student elections. Last week, new VC Deborah Terry held a private meeting with one of our key opponents, today we discovered these opponents registered tickets under our name, disqualifying us. — Drew
MB has frequently questioned the odious links between international students and university rankings. In a nutshell, a system has been created by the federal government and Australia’s universities to encourage strong growth in full fee paying international students via: The Australian government offering the world’s most generous student visa working rights and opportunities for permanent
When I said UQ would have more Drew Pavlou’s on their hands if they expelled me, I meant it. My mate has legally changed his name to Drew Pavlou to allow me to run for student president. Vote for him to get me back on the UQ Senate- help me beat UQ’s corrupt ban 👍🏼
Burn you bastard. Burn! At the ABC: A government program to bring international university students back to Australia is yet to get off the ground, as businesses reliant on overseas students warn the market will take years to recover, even in the unlikely event borders reopened for next year’s semester one intake. The Federal Education
The latest student visa data from the Department of Home Affairs suggested that claims of a crash in international student numbers are wildly exaggerated with the number of student visas on issue as at 30 June 2020 slightly higher than a year earlier: As shown above, there were 555,310 student visas on issue at the
From The ABC comes more proof that Australian universities are dumbing down courses, and selling their souls, for Chinese international students: A Sydney university has recommended staff self-censor teaching material to keep students in China enrolled during the pandemic. The University of Technology Sydney (UTS) conducted a working group in February to discuss how to
A new survey shows that, contrary to popular perceptions, international students have been treated well by Australia and it remains the preferred study destination of Indian students: International students now believe that Australia has done more than other major education destinations to help them during the Covid-19 crisis, a survey suggests. Respondents to a questionnaire of more
Last year, the Department of Home Affairs tightened visa rules for students from India, Nepal and Pakistan, deeming them “high-risk” and requiring applicants to demonstrate strong English-language proficiency and prove increased financial capacity in order to qualify for a student visa. These visa changes followed a Four Corners expose on Australia’s international student industry, which was
Australia’s international student trade has reached farcical proportions with a journalism student who took his fight against a failed assignment to the state’s highest court — and lost — now claiming he was victimised by Monash University: Chinmay Naik received just 12 marks out of 100 for a Masters of Journalism video assignment about negative
Nothing to see here: University of Sydney vice-chancellor Michael Spence said he was baffled by a recent federal government probe into his university’s Confucius Institute, while giving evidence at the NSW government inquiry into the future of the state’s tertiary education sector on Monday. …Mr Latham said Australian universities had been forced to respond to
Via Michael Sainsbury at Crikey: Australia’s troubled international student market is beginning to take shape for 2021 and, whichever way you look at it, it’s disastrous. Just six short months ago, this sector was worth a bulked up $35 billion — about two-thirds of which is tuition. Now, industry insiders say that globally the market
As the federal government opens Australia up to the return of international students and migrant workers, there are reportedly up to 100,000 Australian citizens and permanent residents stranded offshore and unable to return home due to limited (and expensive) flights and a weekly cap on returned travellers: Huge numbers of Australians are unable to come
For years, The Australian’s Judith Sloan has been one of the few mainstream commentators to call out the chicanery and corruption afflicting Australia’s universities. Yesterday, Sloan published her magnum opus on the issue, outlining in detail why the university sector should be subject to its very own royal commission: On Sunday the Morrison government announced
Wonderful news: Academics working for Chinese government think tanks and top universities say they are cutting off communications with their Australian counterparts and cancelling plans to travel to the country because they fear they will be accused of being Communist Party infiltrators. Five prominent academics in China specialising in foreign relations and Australian studies told
Suspended student @DrewPavlou lights a “victory cigar” outside the University of Queensland’s campus, after the federal government announced an inquiry into foreign interference at universities in Australia. https://t.co/VZ3A1cpmr5 #auspol #7NEWS pic.twitter.com/qiDPKiAEbA — 7NEWS Brisbane (@7NewsBrisbane) August 31, 2020 Sack UQ management. Reinstate Pavlou with compensation.
Via The Australian: The Morrison government will launch an inquiry into foreign interference in Australian universities and how Beijing has recruited academics to a secretive program that paid lucrative salaries and allowed research to be patented in China. Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton on Sunday outlined the terms of reference for a broad-ranging inquiry into
Drew Pavlou appeared on Alan Jones last night (watch from the 8.10 mark) calling on Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese to vote for a wide ranging federal inquiry into CCP influence over our universities, claiming no student should ever again face what he went through at UQ. My question is: where
Michael Sainsbury has torn into Australia’s commercialised university sector on MichaelWest.com.au, accusing senior management of profiteering on the back of rampant wage theft: While huge numbers of teaching staff have been casualised, the sector is reporting bumper profits and eyewatering corporate salaries… Union representatives are concerned that wage theft by universities from their increasingly casual
The federal and South Australian governments are finalising a plan to fly 300 international students into Adelaide while interstate residents are blocked from entering and thousands of Australians are stranded offshore due to strict entry caps: The final details of the national-first pilot program to fly the students from Singapore back to Adelaide in September
Over the past week, South Australia and the Northern Territory have launched bonkers plans to fly in international students at the same time Australians interstate are precluded from entering and thousands of Australians are stuck abroad and unable to return home. To add insult to injury, Federal Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment, Simon Birmingham,
Via The Australian: Australia’s spy agency has warned universities about the risk to national security from Chinese government recruitment programs, including the Thousand Talents Plan, and has alerted them as recently as May to the potential for collaboration to turn into espionage. ASIO gave private briefings to universities urging them to strengthen their disclosure regimes
Outgoing University of Wollongong academic, Dr Anthony Ashbol, has taken aim at the “corrupted corporatisation” of Australia’s universities, which have turned into degree factories: “I suppose the biggest change for me as a teacher is the expanding class sizes and in particularly tutorials because when I started at the University of Wollongong, small tutorials were
Recall that the Morrison Government has given the green light for South Australia and the Northern Territory to begin flying international students into Australia from next month. In explaining the plan, Federal Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment Simon Birmingham said the scheme was “very important” to the country’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic: “This is
