In a joint media release from Ministers Clare (Education), O’Connor (Skills and Training) and O’Neil (Home Affairs) they have announced the government will introduce new legislation next week based around integrity and sustainability of the IE sector.
From the release:
The legislation will enable the Minister for Education to set an allocation for the maximum number of new international student enrolments education providers can offer.
For vocational education, these allocations will be set based on advice from the Minister for Skills and Training.
The legislation will also deliver important reforms to strengthen the integrity and quality of international education, including the power to:
- Prevent education providers from owning education agent businesses.
- Pause applications for registration from new international education providers and of new courses from existing providers for periods of up to 12 months.
- Require new providers seeking registration to demonstrate a track record of quality education delivery to domestic students before they are allowed to recruit international students.
- Cancel dormant provider registrations to prevent them being used as a market entry tool by unscrupulous actors.
- Prevent providers under serious regulatory investigation from recruiting new international students.
- Improve the sharing of data relating to education agents.
- In addition, the Government will prohibit agent commissions on student transfers between providers in Australia to remove incentives for unscrupulous agents and providers to ‘poach’ students.
Good oh.
The government is bringing in caps. TKN penned a piece on 10 April titled Capping student numbers: We already have a system in place. Why is no one talking about it? In it, it highlights the fact there already is a cap system in place – the CRICOS register. In short, each institution that seeks to provide education to international students must be registered on CRICOS.
As part of this registration, they must seek an upper limit or capacity of how many international students they can bring to Australia and teach. The number is registered by the provider, across all campuses.
Ironically this cap system has been growing and not retracting. As of 2 April 2024 the current CRICOS cap in total is 1,514,413 international students. That’s up from 2 January 2024 where the total capacity was 1,479,342 and from 3 January, 2023 where it was 1,317,195.
This means we are still 500k and change from reaching the CRICOS capacity cap in this country.
The question the Koala has is why do we need new legislation when the Minister already has a system in place which will do exactly what he needs?
International Education and Skills Strategic Framework
The Government is also today releasing the draft International Education and Skills Strategic Framework.
It’s a large document and the Koala would advise sector members to read this carefully.
In the release the government announces “it plans to work with international education providers to limit the number of international students that can be enrolled over a particular period of time.”
“If universities want to enrol international students above that limit, they will be required to establish additional, new supply of purpose-built student accommodation to benefit both international and domestic students and free up pressure on the rental market.” It says.
An interesting distinction between these paragraphs is that one states “providers” while the other states “universities”. Will private providers have the opportunity to enrol above what cap will be imposed or will this only be available to universities? The nomenclature used would suggest this is the latter.
International Education Association of Australia has disseminated a Member Alert. In it, it’s CEO, Phil Honey wood says “Federal Government is looking to allocate a limit on the number of new overseas student enrolments available to each CRICOS registered provider.”
“While stakeholder consultations are being offered, this latest measure will send all the wrong messages, yet again, of Australia’s reliability as a welcoming study destination country. Coming on top of the recently announced changes to financial capability requirements ($24K to $29K), visa processing slowdowns and backlogs, prospective students and our education agents will feel incredibly let down. Other measures, such as big increases in student visa fees, are also anticipated in this week’s Budget.”
“As Convenor of the Council for International Education, I will be meeting with 4 Federal Ministers on Monday to clarify and flesh out more details of what they have planned for soon to be introduced legislation (ESOS Act Amendment Bill). I will be arguing that there is a real danger of Government overreach in this new policy approach. For example, reliance on universities providing more PBSA student accommodation would take years to put into place. Housing is a state and local government policy with little scope for Federal Government effective intervention unless it’s entirely on campus.”
He makes very valid points.
In a follow-up call with the Koala, Mr Honeywood states, “There is enormous devil in the detail around these announcements. For instance, does the Department have the resources available to it to sit down with each and every provider to develop a recruitment target. The housing aspect will also take time and a long period of it to implement.”
“If a provider that has accommodation available to it v a provider that may have been moving through planning approvals but has been stuck in local and state government planning processes, will there be a distinction?”
“Regional universities are a key aspect within the framework. How will the government factor in major city-based teaching sites of regional universities?”
Ian Aird, CEO of English Australia, told the Koala, “It is imperative for any changes as large as these to be implemented successfully and not cause significant damage to a sector that employs hundreds of thousands of Australians and has long been our fourth largest export, that consultation with the sector be given adequate time and due consideration. Unfortunately, this hasn’t always been the case lately.”
Policy on the run
One piece of feedback that The Koala consistently receives from sector members is that the government appears not to be consulting with industry and rather pushing through a retractive agenda without thought to medium and longer-term consequences.
If, as the ministers’ joint media release suggests, legislation has been drafted and will go to parliament next week, it would appear the same can be said of this latest set of reforms.
View the joint media release from Ministers Clare (Education), O’Connor (Skills and Training) and O’Neil (Home Affairs) here.
View the Draft International Education and Skills Strategic Framework here.
