The Senate Education and Employment Committee is set to hold an additional day of hearings into the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Quality and Integrity) Bill 2024 inquiry this Friday, 6 September, the day that the Committee had been due to hand down its report (Not happy Jan!). The push for an additional day of hearings follows criticism by non-Labor Senators about the lack of information provided by government officials at the second day of hearings on 26 August, given institutional caps were released the next day. Senator Henderson went so far as to accuse officials of deception.
With the expectation that government departments will be ‘invited’ back to appear, we re-visit what the Department of Education, the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, and the Department of the Treasury told the Senate Committee. A list of the representatives is at the bottom of this article.
Caps
When asked what the caps were for 2025, Rimmer said “that’s a matter for government”. Senator Pocock asked, “So far, there’s been no decision by government to release that information to universities?” with Rimmer responding, “that’s correct”. Caps were released the next day, meaning DoE must have already prepared letters, it’s reasonable to assume that Rimmer knew that this was the government’s plan.
Methodology
When asked what the methodology was that was being used to calculate caps for university, Rimmer told the Committee it was for the government to announce.
Modelling
There was a line of questioning at the hearing about what modelling had been done by Treasury regarding the impact of student caps, with Reinhardt clarifying that it was “work that we’ve done to understand the implications”, rather than ‘modelling’. This was confirmed later by Cagliarini who characterised it as “broad economic advice” and “analysis”, and again by Reinhardt as “various scenarios”.
Treasury officials confirmed that budget economic forecasts had not considered the impact of caps and that, instead, after caps are announced “we’ll be going through a process at MYEFO to understand in much more detail what the effect on the economy might be. That analysis will be incorporated into our forecasts at MYEFO”.
Data discrepancies
The Koala has spoken to education providers who have confirmed, off-the-record, that data used or provided by the Department of Education has not been accurate. However, Rimmer denied more than once in the hearing that any of DoE’s data was wrong, instead blaming providers for any data inaccuracies, saying “we’ve discovered that the university-entered, university-accountable data is not accurate—in some instances, by some thousands of student records. That’s not on the department. That’s on the providers, who are under a legal obligation to provide accurate data.”
He also told the Committee that the quality of the data in PRISMS was a matter for providers not DoE, that the data in PRISMS was “relatively up-to-date” and that “there are no data errors about the PRISMS system”.
DoE took a question on notice to provided details of data discrepancies. The Koala would like to follow up on this story too, please get in touch if you’re willing to go on-the-record and provided specific details.
Confirmations of Enrolment already issued
Rimmer could not answer a question about how many CoEs had already been issued for next year, however he agreed when Pocock put to him that “no international students who have been given an offer will be affected for 2025”. There is probably a misunderstanding of terminology in this exchange, with Rimmer possibly answering a question that wasn’t asked (CoEs not offers), as it is unlikely that DoE has visibility of how many offers have been issued by education providers.
Unused allocations
When asked what the plan was if a university didn’t use its full allocation, Rimmer said that a mechanism to address this had been discussed with government and that “no doubt that’s one of the things that will be become public when government makes its announcements”. Note that this has not yet been made public.
Ministerial Direction 107
According to Rimmer, the negative impact of Ministerial Direction 107 on regional and other universities is “one of the reasons why the proposed managed system of international education is the subject of this bill”. This comes as a surprise to The Koala, as the Minister only recently announced his intention to replace MD107 with caps. He went on later to indirectly criticise MD107, saying that “the bill is about putting in place a better mechanism to manage the system to produce high-quality outcomes for everyone involved”.
Resourcing
When asked if DoE had the resources to manage caps, Rimmer told the Committee “we’ve received resources from government to achieve that outcome, and I’m confident that we’ll be able to do so”.
Exceeding caps
There is a final piece of the implementation puzzle that The Koala doesn’t understand:
Rimmer told the hearing “we plan that PRISMS will prevent providers from getting to the point where they are in fact over their limit, and it will do that with a lot of visibility and transparency back to the provider”.
Yet, in the Factsheet – Implementing Provider Limits in PRISMS released at the same time as enrolment limits it says “The NOSC counts towards the Provider Limit on the date the CoE moves into the ‘Studying’ status”. We think this still means that providers can issue CoEs above their New Overseas Student Commencement limit, they just won’t be able to convert them to Studying.
But no chaos is predicted, DoE has plenty of resources, etc etc, excuse the cynicism…
List of officials who appeared from the Department of Education, the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, and the Department of the Treasury
ANGUS, Ms Laura, First Assistant Secretary, Careers, International, Defence and Assessment Division, Department of Employment and Workplace Relations [by audio link]
CAGLIARINI, Dr Adam, First Assistant Secretary, Macroeconomic Conditions and Population Division, Department of the Treasury
CROSTHWAITE, Ms Kerren, First Assistant Secretary, Housing Division, Department of Treasury
LANGER, Mr Daniel, Acting Assistant Secretary, Careers and International Skills Division, Department of Employment and Workplace Relations [by audio link]
LAWLER, Ms Katerina, Assistant Secretary, VET Quality and Regulation Branch, Department of Employment and Workplace Relations [by audio link]
PROCAILO, Ms Alexandra, Assistant Secretary, Quality Branch, Department of Education,
REINHARDT, Ms Sam, Deputy Secretary, Fiscal Group, Department of the Treasury
RIMMER, Mr Ben, Deputy Secretary, Higher Education, Research and International, Department of Education
If, as anticipated, these witnesses are recalled for Friday’s hearing, and Senators are on their game, it will hopefully be informative more than it will be entertaining, which is almost guaranteed.
