Campus Review Vol 30. Issue 03 | March 2020 | Seite 13

international education
campusreview.com.au
Go8 ‘in the line of fire’
Photo: Noel Celis
Australian universities addicted
to China, sociologist says.
By Wade Zaglas
U
niversity of Sydney sociologist
Salvatore Babones has warned
that some of Australia’s top
universities are too dependent on China
and are “scrambling” to deal with the
Covid-19 travel restrictions affecting
Chinese students in particular.
In an article for the Centre for
Independent Studies, Babones says the
Australian education export sector is
expected to lose between $2.8 and $3.8
billion due to the Covid-19 outbreak, and
that universities – not schools or vocational
education centres – will stand to lose the
bulk of this.
Australia’s prestigious Group of Eight
(Go8) universities, which include the
University of Sydney, UNSW and Monash
University, “will be first in the line of fire”.
While Covid-19 is expected to continue
causing chaos in the world economy,
Babones contends that the “real risk story”
is the effect the protracted travel bans will
have on our country’s universities.
According to him, Australian universities
rely on China for approximately half of
their international student revenue; the fact
that one in every 10 Australian university
students is Chinese underscores the extent
of this problem.
The sociologist argues that Australia’s
mining and resources sector is better
equipped to deal with such a downturn.
He asserts that “Australia’s mining giants
can lose that much in a day’s trading on
the metals exchanges and just as quickly
win it back”.
But commodities aren’t the big story,
according to Babones. After the crisis
has passed, it will be difficult even to
identify the impact of the epidemic on
commodities exports. The industry is so
volatile, he says, that the Covid-19 crisis is
all in a day’s risk management exercise.
Higher education, however, is far less
resilient than the resources sector when
it comes to catastrophic events and risk
management procedures. As semester start
dates and course orientation needs to be
completed in advance, universities such
as Monash have been on the front foot,
delaying the start of the academic year and
complementing this with online delivery,
where possible.
Such contingency plans are essential.
As Babones explains: “Miss the start date
for your English language class and there’s
always another one starting next week. Miss
the beginning of your university term and
you’re out for the semester — or the year.
“Having grown rich on Chinese student
enrolments during the past 20 years,
[the Go8] must now face the music.
“Had they prudently diverted a healthy
portion of their Chinese revenues into
rainy-day reserves, they could pay the piper
with equanimity. Had they used it to buy
insurance, they could dance.
“But as things stand, the Go8 universities
are scrambling to somehow, anyhow,
keep Chinese students enrolled. Instead of
using the Covid-19 crisis as an opportunity
to reduce their China exposures, they are
pulling out all the stops to keep their China
revenues steaming ahead.”
Babones concludes the article by
questioning the practicality of relying
so heavily on a single market and not
diversifying, despite the emerging
opportunities around the world.
“They don’t seem to be asking: Is this
wise? Australia’s commodities exports
may go disproportionately to China, but in
reality, they are sold into a global market
in which China just happens to be the
top buyer. Not long ago the top buyer
was Japan, and in the near future it may
be India.” ■
11