International Students

Plans to fly 35,000 international students into Australian cities from late July have reportedly been abandoned due to the spike in COVID-19 cases in Victoria: The latest COVID-19 outbreak in Victoria has halted nascent plans to bring back nearly 35,000 international students from the end of the month.

The COVID-19 outbreak in Melbourne, brought about by epic quarantine failures, seems to have ended plans to fly international students into Australia later this month: Sloppy management of hotel-based quarantine led to a coronavirus outbreak in Melbourne and forced the Victorian government to put 36 suburbs back under lockdown.

A new report (above) has found that New Zealand’s quarantine system for returned international travelers was unable to cope due to extreme stress amid high levels of demand.

Via News: Queensland Police have launched an investigation into a top Chinese diplomat for allegedly inciting violent threats against an Australian university student.

New Zealand has suffered a mini outbreak of COVID-19 cases imported from returning travelers: After previously declaring the country was coronavirus-free, New Zealand has now recorded seven new cases within the last week.

MB has frequently questioned the odious links between international students and university rankings.

This site has frequently reported on rampant cheating by international students at Australia’s universities, often to get around inadequate English-language proficiency (for example see here, here and here).

Last week we reported that international students would begin to be flown into Australia from July with Canberra and Adelaide to take the first plane loads.

Via News: A student activist who led protests against the Chinese Communist Party claims the University of Queensland has directed a top-tier law firm to threaten him with contempt of court.

Last year, 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.

Last year, FTAlphaville ran an interesting report on the company Navitas, which has made a fortune providing agency services to Non-English Speaking (NES) students seeking to study in Australia: Earlier this year, a consortium of buyers took an Australian company private in a multi-billion-dollar deal.

Drew Pavlou has turned the table on the University of Queensland (UQ), suing the top brass for $3.5 million for defamation and breach of contract: Drew Pavlou says he is suing the university, its chancellor and vice-chancellor for $3.5 million.

The Australian’s higher education editor, Tim Dodd, claims the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the bogus international university rankings system: For the past decade or more the power and influence of the top three rankings — QS, Times Higher Education and the Academic Ranking of World Universities — has been growing and growing.