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Our buildings have single studio apartments – they ’ re perfect to be used as quarantine .
International rescue
Student accommodation providers prepared to charter flights and quarantine students .
By Wade Zaglas
Student accommodation providers
have offered to set up quarantine conditions in their facilities and are lobbying to provide charter flights to Australia for international students in a bid to reverse crippling occupancy rates and revenue losses .
International students and their supporters have also introduced a parliamentary petition to exempt such students from current travel restrictions .
Latest figures from the Federal Department of Education , Skills and Employment highlight that a significant 30 per cent of Australia ’ s more than 540,000 student visa holders were not in the country on January 10 , a worrying sign considering semester one is quickly approaching . Australia ’ s two most populous states have been most affected by the border closures , with New South Wales and Victoria experiencing the most international student departures ( 60,394 and 56,824 , respectively ).
Jenna Weber , operations manager of the country ’ s largest accommodation provider , Scape , told the ABC that it was
“ looking at an 80 to 90 per cent cut in occupancy ”. This will translate into a loss of revenue in the millions as international students have been prepared to pay up to $ 600 per week for a room in one of their “ premium buildings ”.
“ A lot of our buildings have single studio apartments – they ’ re perfect to be used as quarantine ,” Weber said .
“ If international students could quarantine with us , it won ’ t bottleneck those Australian residents coming back .”
One such student stuck overseas and desperate to return to Australia to study is Akshana Nagasundaram , a 21-year-old accounting student from Malaysia . When the RMIT student left Australia for Malaysia last year in March , she believed she would be returning within weeks .
“ I left literally everything , I came back [ to Malaysia ] with just a backpack ,” Nagasundaram told the ABC , adding that she wanted to return to her RMIT campus rather than studying online , a common theme that has emerged among international students .
An education fellow at Victoria University ’ s Mitchell Institute , Dr Peter Hurley , issued an ominous warning , saying “ Australia ’ s international education sector was yet to reach its lowest point ”. Hurley attributes this to the nearly 33 per cent of international students who are out of Australia and not contributing to both the sector and the wider economy .
Such is the importance of international students to both Australia ’ s higher education sector and economy that the federal government has asked states and territories to develop plans to handle international student returns .
However , a spokesperson for the federal education department said : “ Larger numbers of international student arrivals will only be considered when Australians wishing to come back to Australia have returned in substantial numbers .”
Before the outbreak of COVID-19 cases in the Northern Beaches of Sydney , the NSW government announced a plan to return 1,000 students each week to Sydney – a program that has since been shelved . Victoria premier Daniel Andrews said his government was working on a program to return students , but he could not provide a date or clear outline yet .
The situation is seen as so dire for international students that a parliamentary petition – which calls on the Australian government to exempt international students from travel exemptions – was addressed to the House of Representatives . The petition has now received close to 10,000 signatures .
“ International students suffer terribly from the travel ban . High school students cannot go to school . University students struggle with online lessons with bad quality ,” the petition says .
“ We are forced to defer because of invalid internships and in-person courses …
“ Our human rights of attending school are being deprived and leads ( sic ) our family to horrible mental illness . We do not pay our family ’ s saving ( sic ) for video lessons or rent for house ( sic ) which we cannot even live in .
“ International students contribute millions of dollars to Australia ’ s community and benefit Aussie society in various areas .”
The petition closes on 10 February 2021 . ■
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