STARTING TO SPEAK OUR SCHOOL’S LANGUAGE

AFTER a “brutal” 20-month battle trying to survive border closures, Richard Brown cried tears of joy when hearing international students would be allowed to return soon.

The owner of Browns English Language Schools said: “I was overwhelmed with emotion when I heard the news, it’s been a long painful wait.

“For so long it’s been about surviving, now we’re looking forward to thriving.”

Before borders were slammed shut, Browns taught 1000 students and employed 100 staff at campuses on the Gold Coast and Brisbane. Covid decimated the business and for nearly two years it’s been operating on skeleton staff with no overseas students.

“It’s been a brutal 20 months, and we have the battle scars to prove it, but it’s encouraging and exciting to finally be able to welcome our students back,” he said.

“Demand is huge, with lead indicators predicting we’ll be at or above preCovid levels within a year to 18 months – inquiries are already back to pre-Covid levels.”

The Australian government has deferred the easing of border restrictions for international students from December 1 until December 15 – but the first international student arrivals hit Sydney on Monday in a special pilot program for NSW.

Browns reopens to faceto-face learning on April 4, with Mr Brown (right) hopeful the backlog of study visas will be processed in a timely manner.

“For the Gold Coast it means hundreds of homestay families having international students back and for our school and institute partners and the tourism sector and surf, scuba dive and golf operators, it’s having customers return,” he said.

“The flow-on affects of international students and their visiting families on the local economy is huge, they also support the city’s small business sector as workers, and let’s not forget the importance of living in a culturally diverse society.”

Mr Brown said he knew of restaurants and corner shop owners crying in relief when hearing overseas students were set to return, many still opening half of the week because of staff shortages.

“There’s been a huge amount of resilience shown by the industry and those associated with it,” he said.

“But we’re now also very wary of how much we are affected by governments’ policies and how they can influence the operations of businesses.”

Mr Brown said Australia’s English language industry had been compromised by border closures and it would have to claw back its market share after the UK and Canada snapped up eager students months ago.

He was confident in the long-term the sector will “bounce back, and strongly”.