Migration Help
25th January 2010, 12:20 AM
Geoff Maslen
24 January 2010
When the Australian economy was struck by galloping external debt and a poor export performance in the mid-1980s, the then Labor government decided to create an export education industry it hoped would be worth millions of dollars. A quarter of a century on, the current government claims that industry generates A$17 billion (US$15.5 billion) for the national economy every year.
At the time of this momentous change, Australia's existing overseas student aid programme was costing $70 million in government subsidies but was not finding its mark. Until 1986, most foreign students were able to study for their degrees under various aid programmes that were either partly or fully subsidised. From that year on, however, the free honeymoon for students from Asia and the Pacific was over and universities were given permission to charge them full fees.
In 1990, selling education overseas was effectively privatised and government subsidies were replaced by full fees for all new foreign students. There were no imposed limits on their numbers so a university could enrol as many as they wanted. At the time, their fees and living costs supported an industry worth more than $1 billion a year to the beleagured Australian economy.
While the universities constituted the formal arm of the new export industry, an army of specialist colleges sprang up in the non-formal sector offering everything from English and business studies to kung fu and computing. Thousands of overseas students also began enrolling in private and public secondary schools while an increasing number started 'foundation' year courses to prepare them for university for which they also paid full fees.
By September last year, more than 585,000 full-fee paying international students were in Australia on student visas - a 19% growth on the previous year's figures. China and India were the largest source countries with Chinese students comprising nearly a quarter of all enrolments and Indians almost one in five.
At the time, higher education institutions enrolled more than 200,000 foreign students, the vocational education sector 211,500 and English language colleges another 114,000. Government claims that this vast group of foreigners spend more than $17 billion to live and study in Australia - making education the nation's third biggest export earner - are deeply suspect as Monash University sociologist Dr Bob Birrell has found.
Birrell says the sums quoted do not take account of the heavy commissions charged by overseas migration agents whose fees can range from 20-50% of the full cost of a course in Australia. Those fees are paid by the students before they arrive in Australia but the statisticians only add up the total cost of their courses and do not deduct these charges.
Nor do they include the money that students themselves earn by working in Australia outside their study hours to defray the costs of their tuition and living expenses. When estimates of earnings and commissions are deducted, Birrell says the actual contribution to the economy is probably around $8 billion a year.
But arguments over the monetary worth of the industry have been overshadowed by the poor monitoring by state and federal governments of the educational quality provided by universities and private colleges - and by the diplomatic row with India over increasing attacks on Indian students in Melbourne and Sydney.
At least a dozen private vocational colleges have been forced to close in the last 12 months, leaving thousands of students to wonder how they will complete their courses. This followed a sudden tightening of immigration rules that have slashed the number of visas issued to Indian students and those from certain other countries.
As well as the students already in the country affected by the closures, the Chinese and Indian governments have warned their young citizens at home to be careful about enrolling in Australian colleges of doubtful integrity and to be ever watchful if they go out at night.
Australian higher education's strong reputation in Asia, across the Pacific and further afield was built and then fortified over years in the 1950s, '60s and '70s. It was this reputation, ironically, that then underpinned the rapid growth of the export education industry in subsequent decades.
Yet, like an errant child set prematurely loose, many of the institutions, including the universities, involved in this big growth industry have done much in a few short years to undermine the goodwill generated by decades of educational aid.
SOURCE (http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=2010012309163040)
MH
24 January 2010
When the Australian economy was struck by galloping external debt and a poor export performance in the mid-1980s, the then Labor government decided to create an export education industry it hoped would be worth millions of dollars. A quarter of a century on, the current government claims that industry generates A$17 billion (US$15.5 billion) for the national economy every year.
At the time of this momentous change, Australia's existing overseas student aid programme was costing $70 million in government subsidies but was not finding its mark. Until 1986, most foreign students were able to study for their degrees under various aid programmes that were either partly or fully subsidised. From that year on, however, the free honeymoon for students from Asia and the Pacific was over and universities were given permission to charge them full fees.
In 1990, selling education overseas was effectively privatised and government subsidies were replaced by full fees for all new foreign students. There were no imposed limits on their numbers so a university could enrol as many as they wanted. At the time, their fees and living costs supported an industry worth more than $1 billion a year to the beleagured Australian economy.
While the universities constituted the formal arm of the new export industry, an army of specialist colleges sprang up in the non-formal sector offering everything from English and business studies to kung fu and computing. Thousands of overseas students also began enrolling in private and public secondary schools while an increasing number started 'foundation' year courses to prepare them for university for which they also paid full fees.
By September last year, more than 585,000 full-fee paying international students were in Australia on student visas - a 19% growth on the previous year's figures. China and India were the largest source countries with Chinese students comprising nearly a quarter of all enrolments and Indians almost one in five.
At the time, higher education institutions enrolled more than 200,000 foreign students, the vocational education sector 211,500 and English language colleges another 114,000. Government claims that this vast group of foreigners spend more than $17 billion to live and study in Australia - making education the nation's third biggest export earner - are deeply suspect as Monash University sociologist Dr Bob Birrell has found.
Birrell says the sums quoted do not take account of the heavy commissions charged by overseas migration agents whose fees can range from 20-50% of the full cost of a course in Australia. Those fees are paid by the students before they arrive in Australia but the statisticians only add up the total cost of their courses and do not deduct these charges.
Nor do they include the money that students themselves earn by working in Australia outside their study hours to defray the costs of their tuition and living expenses. When estimates of earnings and commissions are deducted, Birrell says the actual contribution to the economy is probably around $8 billion a year.
But arguments over the monetary worth of the industry have been overshadowed by the poor monitoring by state and federal governments of the educational quality provided by universities and private colleges - and by the diplomatic row with India over increasing attacks on Indian students in Melbourne and Sydney.
At least a dozen private vocational colleges have been forced to close in the last 12 months, leaving thousands of students to wonder how they will complete their courses. This followed a sudden tightening of immigration rules that have slashed the number of visas issued to Indian students and those from certain other countries.
As well as the students already in the country affected by the closures, the Chinese and Indian governments have warned their young citizens at home to be careful about enrolling in Australian colleges of doubtful integrity and to be ever watchful if they go out at night.
Australian higher education's strong reputation in Asia, across the Pacific and further afield was built and then fortified over years in the 1950s, '60s and '70s. It was this reputation, ironically, that then underpinned the rapid growth of the export education industry in subsequent decades.
Yet, like an errant child set prematurely loose, many of the institutions, including the universities, involved in this big growth industry have done much in a few short years to undermine the goodwill generated by decades of educational aid.
SOURCE (http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=2010012309163040)
MH