Promises, promises: college purge a disaster waiting to happen

[Migration Help]

A light has been turned on in training kitchens and hairdressing salons across Australia, and the cockroaches are scurrying for cover.

The educational equivalent of people smugglers - dodgy migration agents, privately owned training schools, and shops and restaurants that used and abused foreign students - are fleeing the scene.

The impressively named hairdressing academies, international hospitality schools and five-star business institutions are falling over with numbing regularity; many owners tumbling into the arms of liquidators.

Federal Education Minister Julia Gillard coyly describes this farce as an industry ''refocusing''. In reality, it's a bloody purge.

The federal government's cleanout of spivs and shysters in bucketshop schools will have far reaching consequences for our $17 billion education export industry. Many are worried about collateral damage to legitimate institutions emboldened by successive governments to chase the overseas student dollar.

How did we get into this mess?

In 2005, in the midst of the boom, employer groups complained they could not find semi-skilled workers to fill jobs in areas such as cookery and hairdressing. The then immigration minister, Kevin Andrews, came up with a solution: overseas students who did vocational courses in trades that were in demand would be given bonus points towards securing permanent residency.

Suddenly the students could knock over a quick course at a private college and almost guarantee themselves residency. Thousands of fly-by-night colleges opened alongside the legitimate industry to cater to the influx.

Many were devoid of the most basic education facilities. They were accompanied by a network of migration agents, shops and restaurants to support the enterprise.

While the Howard government, and later the Rudd government, got their knickers in a twist over a handful of refugee boats and people smugglers, they presided over a corrupted system where tens of thousands of overseas students handed over huge amounts of money in order to become Australian residents. The hypocrisy is galling.

Between 2003 and last year the number of overseas vocational students jumped from 48,573 to 212,538. But a 2006 survey found that within 18 months of graduation only half were employed in their field of study.

Alarmed, the government set a requirement for students to do 900 hours' work experience, inadvertently making their lives even more miserable. Employers discovered a new workforce, one willing to work for free. Elsewhere, it is called slavery.

Bruce Baird, the man called in by the government to rescue the reputation of Australia's international education industry late last year, estimated 20 per cent of vocational colleges were ''permanent residency factories''. They had distorted the entire education sector.

In February the government announced an overhaul of the program. The tens of thousands of students studying hairdressing and hospitality will only be able to get permanent residency if they can find an employer to sponsor them. They will be able to acquire an 18-month bridging visa to assist them. Legislation was passed requiring all colleges to re-register under new, stronger criteria by the end of this year. Interestingly, one of the main requirements of them will be to show education is their main purpose.

A migration agent, Karl Konrad, and academic Bob Birrell were among the first people to highlight the corruption at the heart of this education and immigration nexus.

However, Konrad says the government response is the equivalent of lobbing a few stun grenades to see who is left standing, instead of finely tuning an instrument of precision.

''The Baird report sees 20 per cent of vocational colleges as visa factories; perhaps it is he who needs the visionary adjustment,'' he says.

''Skills factories perhaps, but as far I am aware no private enterprise can produce visas. Certainly pumping out international students with skills is not just [in] the hands of private enterprise; TAFE has been making a healthy profit from them as well. So is it fair to tarnish legitimate businesses which have set up to meet the business demand of overseas students and their desire to migrate to Australia? Hardly.

''Is it fair to cut colleges off at the knees by changing the migration laws so dramatically overseas students will be reduced to a trickle, condemning many educational institutions to an early debt-ridden closure? This is not a responsible ethical action we would expect from any government.''

Perhaps Konrad is right. These were businesses meeting the demand created and delivered by the government.

But if the wider industry had exhibited more concern for the plight of the students while the dollars were falling from the sky, none of them would be in this mess.

SOURCE (http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/promises-promises-college-purge-a-disaster-waiting-to-happen-20100328-r59r.html)

MH

[digger]

I suppose it's a bit like the old story of unable to being able to please more than half the people even less than half the time and stretched this time around a very few people being a little happy.

Is saying the government immigration policies are about chasing money also a stretch of the imagination?
Like lets follow the sequence described:
. employer groups lobby government re shortages
. government reviews immigration possibilities re points from SOL/MODL/studying in Australia and occupations on SOL/MODL.
The expansion of the MODL being one of the reasons for its revoking.
. dodgy people of whatever description start up carrot gardens
So sure this approach was doomed as soon as dodgy bros moved in to grow the education sector exponentially no matter what the quality.

The education sector is nothing to do with immigration as far as I know other than that students need to meet certain requirements to get even student visas and Australia not being a police state does rely to a large extent on organisations meeting registration criteria to operate and quite possibly minimal physical checking of resources and activities.

Chuck in an election and GFC and yep any government department including DEEWR will be dragging the chain, somewhat the mode of governments and the public service generally I suspect.

The bulk of funds are a transaction between students and education suppliers but rightly so the government should be concerned with shonky education being used as an immigration vehicle and they have moved to stop the rort.
Even a two year course [ and I assume that is what is meant by quick ] at TAFE is not really adequate to train a person to the same standard as employers would expect to get with someone having undertaken an apprenticeship and so no wonder two year graduates do not work in area of training and thus all the more reason to control the situation.

Lets hope the weeding continues and the many international students who come to Australia to study can do so without being scooped up by sham colleges, the true colleges/universities of education having nothing to fear and if their numbers drop off because students have not come because they realise there is no guarantee of moving on to permanent residency, the colleges and universities will continue to function.

It is certainly not correct for study to be promoted in conjunction with immigration so policy to control something that is very much out of control can hardly be considered unfair.

Meanwhile the governments attention is rightly also on other border issues.

[Gethro]

Interesting comment about cockroaches all scurrying for cover!


I run one of the hospitality colleges. We employ pest control contractors for cockroaches and other pests in our training kitchens, with good effect and have not seen any scurrying for cover so far.

Sadly there are no properly functioning controller/s of agents (education and migration) to prevent them from interfering in the running of colleges, students' study/careers etc all for a few measly $$$$. The agents are more troublesome than the cockroaches and by a long shot.

The majority of the students studying at our college are genuine students, pay their way, work in the industry and bring only favourable comment from employers - to such extent that employers come to us looking for our students. To deny them PR when the employers struggle to find honest and reliable employees for their businesses is a tragedy. To see how hard these students have worked and studied to have their hopes trashed due to political ideology is disheartening for all. The method by which these changes have been made is draconian and the effects will be similarly blunt and backward for the industries and employers.
I have advised our students to continue to study even though the occupations of cook, pasty cook and chef have been removed from the SOL. The reason being that there are massive skills shortages in Australia and even during the depths of the GFC there were gaping holes in the availability of skilled workers for the hospitality industry. Therefore, and in my view, the changes made won’t last long and there is now a high probability that there will be a change of government in the near future. Also, there are options remaining to migrate if they should wish to do so and there are other options to migrate to other countries based on their successful studies and employment in Australia. All is not lost!

I want to know what the losses will be for Australia once this is all settled - anybody got an idea?
Gethro


A light has been turned on in training kitchens and hairdressing salons across Australia, and the cockroaches are scurrying for cover.

The educational equivalent of people smugglers - dodgy migration agents, privately owned training schools, and shops and restaurants that used and abused foreign students - are fleeing the scene.

The impressively named hairdressing academies, international hospitality schools and five-star business institutions are falling over with numbing regularity; many owners tumbling into the arms of liquidators.

Federal Education Minister Julia Gillard coyly describes this farce as an industry ''refocusing''. In reality, it's a bloody purge.

The federal government's cleanout of spivs and shysters in bucketshop schools will have far reaching consequences for our $17 billion education export industry. Many are worried about collateral damage to legitimate institutions emboldened by successive governments to chase the overseas student dollar.

How did we get into this mess?

In 2005, in the midst of the boom, employer groups complained they could not find semi-skilled workers to fill jobs in areas such as cookery and hairdressing. The then immigration minister, Kevin Andrews, came up with a solution: overseas students who did vocational courses in trades that were in demand would be given bonus points towards securing permanent residency.

Suddenly the students could knock over a quick course at a private college and almost guarantee themselves residency. Thousands of fly-by-night colleges opened alongside the legitimate industry to cater to the influx.

Many were devoid of the most basic education facilities. They were accompanied by a network of migration agents, shops and restaurants to support the enterprise.

While the Howard government, and later the Rudd government, got their knickers in a twist over a handful of refugee boats and people smugglers, they presided over a corrupted system where tens of thousands of overseas students handed over huge amounts of money in order to become Australian residents. The hypocrisy is galling.

Between 2003 and last year the number of overseas vocational students jumped from 48,573 to 212,538. But a 2006 survey found that within 18 months of graduation only half were employed in their field of study.

Alarmed, the government set a requirement for students to do 900 hours' work experience, inadvertently making their lives even more miserable. Employers discovered a new workforce, one willing to work for free. Elsewhere, it is called slavery.

Bruce Baird, the man called in by the government to rescue the reputation of Australia's international education industry late last year, estimated 20 per cent of vocational colleges were ''permanent residency factories''. They had distorted the entire education sector.

In February the government announced an overhaul of the program. The tens of thousands of students studying hairdressing and hospitality will only be able to get permanent residency if they can find an employer to sponsor them. They will be able to acquire an 18-month bridging visa to assist them. Legislation was passed requiring all colleges to re-register under new, stronger criteria by the end of this year. Interestingly, one of the main requirements of them will be to show education is their main purpose.

A migration agent, Karl Konrad, and academic Bob Birrell were among the first people to highlight the corruption at the heart of this education and immigration nexus.

However, Konrad says the government response is the equivalent of lobbing a few stun grenades to see who is left standing, instead of finely tuning an instrument of precision.

''The Baird report sees 20 per cent of vocational colleges as visa factories; perhaps it is he who needs the visionary adjustment,'' he says.

''Skills factories perhaps, but as far I am aware no private enterprise can produce visas. Certainly pumping out international students with skills is not just [in] the hands of private enterprise; TAFE has been making a healthy profit from them as well. So is it fair to tarnish legitimate businesses which have set up to meet the business demand of overseas students and their desire to migrate to Australia? Hardly.

''Is it fair to cut colleges off at the knees by changing the migration laws so dramatically overseas students will be reduced to a trickle, condemning many educational institutions to an early debt-ridden closure? This is not a responsible ethical action we would expect from any government.''

Perhaps Konrad is right. These were businesses meeting the demand created and delivered by the government.

But if the wider industry had exhibited more concern for the plight of the students while the dollars were falling from the sky, none of them would be in this mess.

SOURCE (http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/promises-promises-college-purge-a-disaster-waiting-to-happen-20100328-r59r.html)

MH

[digger]

Interesting comment about cockroaches all scurrying for cover!


I run one of the hospitality colleges. We employ pest control contractors for cockroaches and other pests in our training kitchens, with good effect and have not seen any scurrying for cover so far.

Sadly there are no properly functioning controller/s of agents (education and migration) to prevent them from interfering in the running of colleges, students' study/careers etc all for a few measly $$$$. The agents are more troublesome than the cockroaches and by a long shot.

The majority of the students studying at our college are genuine students, pay their way, work in the industry and bring only favourable comment from employers - to such extent that employers come to us looking for our students. To deny them PR when the employers struggle to find honest and reliable employees for their businesses is a tragedy. To see how hard these students have worked and studied to have their hopes trashed due to political ideology is disheartening for all. The method by which these changes have been made is draconian and the effects will be similarly blunt and backward for the industries and employers.
I have advised our students to continue to study even though the occupations of cook, pasty cook and chef have been removed from the SOL. The reason being that there are massive skills shortages in Australia and even during the depths of the GFC there were gaping holes in the availability of skilled workers for the hospitality industry. Therefore, and in my view, the changes made won’t last long and there is now a high probability that there will be a change of government in the near future. Also, there are options remaining to migrate if they should wish to do so and there are other options to migrate to other countries based on their successful studies and employment in Australia. All is not lost!

I want to know what the losses will be for Australia once this is all settled - anybody got an idea?
Gethro
I wouldn't have thought you would have had too much of a problem down Melbourne way with the roaches either Gethro for they're more a northern states unwelcome guest just as the comment was a literary guest.

As to cost of it all, I expect it'll be absorbed in the ebb and flow of it all and though the massive increase in student numbers was not all cooks, even if they comprised a mere 10% of numbers and just a goodly number of those wanted to work here that would have still seen us filling plenty of holes.
We've also had so many restaurants closing up or scaling back because of the GFC, and not so much because of lack of staff.
Actually, I douby if too many closures for lack of staff have ever hit the headlines!

But yes, there are other immigration channels and if students come to study for study sake and so they can be employed anywhere globally, will that not be ideal.

[Gethro]

Digger, the issues are several. Firstly, there are deskilling effects and result in lower standards and quality. Secondly, there are the long term skills shortage impacts as the changes do not in any way address these long standing and worsening problems.
Thirdly, International students bring revenue to Australia and create demand for our economies, employ Australians, etc. To remove this positive from the Australian economy as we emerge from the GFC is foolhardy to say the least. I could go on and on.
Study for study sake? Well, study to bring a brighter and better future - preferably.

Gethro

[digger]

Digger, the issues are several. Firstly, there are deskilling effects and result in lower standards and quality. Secondly, there are the long term skills shortage impacts as the changes do not in any way address these long standing and worsening problems.
Thirdly, International students bring revenue to Australia and create demand for our economies, employ Australians, etc. To remove this positive from the Australian economy as we emerge from the GFC is foolhardy to say the least. I could go on and on.
Study for study sake? Well, study to bring a brighter and better future - preferably.

Gethro
Certainly lower standards coming from dodgy training establishments are to be avoided I am sure you would agree Gethro that the education sector, students and Australia will all be better for any action to address the situation.

It would seem that some industries have had something of a picnic claiming long term skills shortages, the increase in MODL occupations being one indication of that and ultimately its distortion of the points system also leading to its demise.

No doubt if there is sufficient long term demand in cooking, colleges providing quality education should still do well enough.
There are also other means of providing for skills shortages and they may in fact provide for employees with higher skills than what most college graduates would have at outset.
At the end of the day, the industry for cooks/chefs is not one as essential to life as others and yet some people could say that of course one running a college for students would say that demands will never be met.

On the economy front, there is no long term value on attempting to build something which is completely untenable and that is the monstrous over supply of education and the educated that cannot find a place in a society.
There is even limited short term value in an imbalance of supply/demand.

Sure, there may be some figures that show education to be a certain level industry, its growth being spectacular in the last half a decade or so, focused on particular courses that may or may not have been marketed as a road to PR.
That growth may have already significantly damaged the Australian economy and was certainly unsustainable as to Australia's employment opportunities.
. How positive is it for the Australian economy for the thousands of students in Australia [ and partners in some cases ] seeking part-time employment only for funds to be channelled overseas.
. Some employers realising of a great employment pool available are then likely to offer casual work for less than normal rates of pay, and that in itself will just lead to further problems.
. I do not know that the planet has so much emerged from the GFC, it possibly being that there is a lot of sand and clouds about for heads to be in or above and little recognition having been given to the real nature of problems developed on debt.
Our own government here has deluded itself in thinking that stimulus otherwise able to be defined as splurging is how to stave off an economic crisis.
Yes, we can go on and on but I think you may find that demand for cooks may not be just as you hope for.

[Gethro]

Certainly lower standards coming from dodgy training establishments are to be avoided I am sure you would agree Gethro that the education sector, students and Australia will all be better for any action to address the situation.

It would seem that some industries have had something of a picnic claiming long term skills shortages, the increase in MODL occupations being one indication of that and ultimately its distortion of the points system also leading to its demise.

No doubt if there is sufficient long term demand in cooking, colleges providing quality education should still do well enough.
There are also other means of providing for skills shortages and they may in fact provide for employees with higher skills than what most college graduates would have at outset.
At the end of the day, the industry for cooks/chefs is not one as essential to life as others and yet some people could say that of course one running a college for students would say that demands will never be met.

On the economy front, there is no long term value on attempting to build something which is completely untenable and that is the monstrous over supply of education and the educated that cannot find a place in a society.
There is even limited short term value in an imbalance of supply/demand.

Sure, there may be some figures that show education to be a certain level industry, its growth being spectacular in the last half a decade or so, focused on particular courses that may or may not have been marketed as a road to PR.
That growth may have already significantly damaged the Australian economy and was certainly unsustainable as to Australia's employment opportunities.
. How positive is it for the Australian economy for the thousands of students in Australia [ and partners in some cases ] seeking part-time employment only for funds to be channelled overseas.
. Some employers realising of a great employment pool available are then likely to offer casual work for less than normal rates of pay, and that in itself will just lead to further problems.
. I do not know that the planet has so much emerged from the GFC, it possibly being that there is a lot of sand and clouds about for heads to be in or above and little recognition having been given to the real nature of problems developed on debt.
Our own government here has deluded itself in thinking that stimulus otherwise able to be defined as splurging is how to stave off an economic crisis.
Yes, we can go on and on but I think you may find that demand for cooks may not be just as you hope for.
Digger, I agree, dodgy colleges should be closed and prevented from starting. However let us not paint all private providers with the one brush as has been done by the current Government.

Our college for example; cost more than $3m to set up, costs about $2m pa to run, employs 11 chefs and 10 administrative staff, we have our own restaurants and take the training and employment prospects of our students very seriously. We are not in the migration game at all, but as the students have other motives and wish to stay I suppose we can be accused of somewhat facilitating/propagating this dilemma.

Making it harder for International students to migrate is not a problem for us. In fact I support it in principle. What I don't support is the distortion and interference in the commercial market by government and the rhetoric that serves no good.

It appears that TRA now takes the employability of graduates very seriously. This is more like the role government should play. If there are places in the migration programme for cooks and TRA approves them for migration purposes, where is the problem?

The distortions and so forth that you allude to are due to a lack of credible data and the spin of the current government. If you do a bit research (GOOGLE skills shortage statistics) you will find a very interesting and credible story based on hard facts. Gillard's own portfolio web site has very good information that flies in the face of the Skills Australia report and the new SOL. I have to say that there is a lot of confusion and misinformation.

In terms of fees being channelled overseas, I think this is not a big deal. In the case of one International student: about $36,000++ spent to live in Oz for 2 years. $20,000++ spent on education, air tickets, transfers, car, fuel, parking, other out of pockets etc sees the student spending on average $700 - $800 -per week in Oz. You multiply this figure by the number of International students and you will start to get the picture. We need to see at least one semester fees up front and that gives about $5,000 per student from offshore. Students very often have money transferred from their home country to pay fees. I can assure that there is much more cash coming in and staying here than goes out.

There is ample evidence to support the fact that there are large skills shortages and high demand for cooks, chefs and pastry cooks and bakers and............... nationally and this is long standing. I only hope a sense of calm and stabilty returns to the market.

Happy chewing!

Gethro