Aussie borders closed, but govt making exception for foreign students
While Australia’s borders remain firmly closed to overseas visitors, the government plans to make a notable exception as it races to save its fourthbiggest export: education.
In time for the new semester, authorities are working on a plan to allow 350 international students to be flown into Canberra later this month to resume classes.
Under a trial programme that could be rolled out nationally, the universities and territory government will foot the bill for their two-week quarantine in hotels.
It’s a sign of just how reliant the country’s higher education sector has become on overseas students, who make up roughly a quarter of all enrollment — the second-highest ratio in the world after Luxembourg — and 40 per cent of student revenues due to the higher fees they are charged.
But extraordinary steps to help the A$38 billion export industry recover from the coronavirus lockdown may not be enough.
Australia has fallen behind the United States, United Kingdom and France in the highly competitive market by opening fewer offshore campuses. And with 37 per cent of its international students at universities coming from China last year, it serves as a warning to other nations of the perils of growing too dependent on a single market.
Relations with Beijing are in the deep freeze after Prime Minister Scott Morrison led calls for an inquiry into the source of the Covid-19 outbreak.
It may be several months before the impact of China’s warning shows up in enrollment numbers, which had been plateauing for the past three years.
But a recent survey by the staterun Global Times was ominous. More than 80 per cent of respondents said they would “definitely or somewhat consider” bilateral relations when choosing their study and travel destinations.
“We don’t have a one-year problem — we have a two-, three-, four-year problem”, if students are unable to return to Australia and the delays drag out across their degrees, said Catriona Jackson, chief executive of Universities Australia. The group forecasts lost revenue of as much as A$16 billion by 2023.
The US, Canada and the UK have been proactive in rolling out their curricula in international schools in countries such as China, effectively paving a pathway to their universities, according to Phil Honeywood, chief executive of the International Education Association of Australia.
If Australia can “provide a more comprehensive narrative about our genuine care for international students’ welfare, then we’ll be better placed against many other” countries, Honeywood said. “If we move quickly.”