Current public debate and media musings need to be better. This is the position of the Innovative Research Universities group.
Executive Director Paul Harris , who will be appearing before the Senate Committee first thing on Monday morning to talk about the government’s proposed legislation on international education says “We must ensure that the way we are talking about international education is not harmful to students and not damaging Australia’s reputation for quality education and as a welcoming country.”
He’s right. There’s been plenty of examples of late whereby students have been referred to as “cash cows”, as numbers in an Excel spreadsheet and have been labelled “risks”.
“It’s offensive” says Harris. The Koala understands his point and what more this kind of nomenclature is damaging the national brand which has sat widely throughout time as compassionate and welcoming.
The IRU states ‘the way that the government is currently managing visa processing for international students (Ministerial Direction 107) is unfairly impacting certain students and universities and it is undermining diversity and equity in our system.’
They may be lucky. Earlier this week, Education Minister Jason Clare, in an interview post the AFR Higher Education Summit, said that the government’s proposed enrolment caps would replace Ministerial Direction 107. However, the Minister refused to be drawn on what number of international students was “too many”. (TKN 20/8/24)
The Koala cautions, however, not to confuse direction 107 – the prioritisation of visa processing with the overarching SSVF framework which has not been mentioned and will be likely to remain.
So, what will be the IRU’s lobbying angle on Monday? In short, diversity. “we should keep a focus on students and on the benefits of diverse cohorts” says Harris. In fact, “the members of the Innovative Research Universities (IRU) have more diverse student cohorts that the average across the sector. In total, 21% of our students are international students.” Harris stipulates.
He also joined peer lobby groups in calling for an end to Ministerial Direction 107. “Ministerial Direction 107 has disproportionately and unfairly impacted IRU students and universities this year. While commencements of new students in the first half of this year are up in other parts of the sector, they are down across the IRU. New commencements by Indian students in our universities have been cut in half,” he says.
“We need a better way to manage international education. This is our number one priority for policy reform and amendments to the ESOS Act”.
“Throughout this debate, we should be very careful to avoid talking about international education in ways that are harmful to students and to Australia’s global reputation. It is offensive to suggest that all students from certain countries are more “risky” than others.”
Hear, hear!
The Koala looks forward to day two of the senate inquiry on Monday and seeing the IRU prosecute its position.
