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international education becoming more apparent, with Latin American markets now much to the fore.
Similarly good news was contained in the overview of the Australian Government’ s International Student Survey 2014. Responses from the 50,000 surveyed international students studying in Australia were the best in many years; 88 per cent were either satisfied or very satisfied with their overall studying and living experience. There was also a new development from this survey, which is in accord with the results of a similar survey by Hobsons. The top reason for choosing Australia( 95 per cent) is now the reputation of the chosen qualification or course. In previous student surveys, the reputation of the education institution was usually paramount. On this occasion, the reputation of the chosen institution came in close behind at 94 per cent. With the federal government planning to release its Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching( QILT) online platform later this year, there will soon be even more data available to students based on course quality differentiation.
The bad news The international education sector is used to coming under the spotlight of both the media and government from time to time. With over 450,000 tuition fee-paying overseas students now studying in Australia, there will continue to be challenges associated with student safety, academic progress, plagiarism, education agents and provider behaviour … to mention but a few. It is important to note that many of these issues are not confined to the international education sector – domestic student enrolments are not immune from such challenges.
What is different, however, is the fact that international education has probably the highest level of government oversight and regulation of any industry sector. Whether it be the Education Services for Overseas Students( ESOS) Act, the National Code, Tertiary Education Quality Standards Agency and Australian Skills Quality Authority, the Tuition Protection Service or the more recent Genuine Temporary Entrance test and Streamlined Visa Processing requirements, the disciplinary mechanisms available to our regulators have never been stronger. A number of nations that compete with Australia for overseas students have nothing like this level of jurisdictional oversight and intervention.
Unfortunately, all of the quality assurance work that has been put in place by the thousands of academic and professional staff who work in our sector seemed to count for little when certain external bodies decided recently to focus their attention on international education.
The critics Without providing specifics to back up its findings, the Independent Commission Against Corruption( ICAC) NSW produced a report that concluded, amongst other matters, there was“ potential for corrupt behaviour” in the relationship between education agents and Australia’ s public universities. The International Education Association of Australia( IEAA), together with other industry associations, was quick to raise concerns about ICAC’ s lack of consultation with sector-wide representatives.
More worrying still was the use of answers provided to the commission in isolation from their context. By sending out to NSW public universities a seemingly innocuous set of questions, the ICAC raised much concern that it appeared to have“ cut and pasted” certain answers, which could have provided an incomplete assessment of a complex situation.
It soon became apparent that ICAC and ABC’ s Four Corners investigative current affairs program had been following similar paths.
With rumours circulating that the ABC was about to do a job on the international education sector, I personally contacted the show’ s senior journalist to ask why IEAA, Universities Australia, English Australia nor any other representative industry associations had been contacted for input. The response was that this“ was not considered necessary”. When the program aired under the dubious title“ Degrees of Deception”, our suspicions about one-sided reporting were proven correct.
One of the major concerns ICAC and Four Corners raised relates to the use of offshore education agents. These third-party middlemen were said to be unregulated and pivotal to our“ universities trading away academic standards for cash”. Such claims are easily made but overlook key facts. Many overseas students and their families rely heavily on trained education agents in their own country to provide professional advice on the courses and institutions that suit their abilities and aspirations. It is complete nonsense to suggest that such agents are unregulated. In China, for example, all education agents must be officially licensed and pay a bond to the government of 2 million renminbi($ 420,000). If any Chinese student claims they received wrong or negligent advice from their agent, it is highly possible for that agent to lose both licence and bond.
It is also well known the federal government has almost completed a project to scope the potential for a quality framework for Australia’ s education agents. There is every likelihood this will include a quality assurance scheme that will cull bad agents from the system. Four Corners was presented with this information, but did not mention it.
The Productivity Commission’ s recent paper on international education services did not reflect particularly well on the international education sector either.
Up front, it reads like a good news story. Not only is international education kicking goals for our beleaguered economy – to the tune of $ 17 billion a year – but it continues to enhance Australia’ s global credentials. It also finds that our nation’ s third-largest export creates 130,000 full-time equivalent jobs. These are not just in teaching but cut across the entire economy, including accommodation, food, entertainment and even tourism.
Notwithstanding this, the commission points to four key areas of concern. These issues are governance, student visa integrity, comparative quality course ratings and the complex issue of education agent quality assurance. It concludes that more regulatory reform might be required if Australia is to remain the study destination of choice.
More than yet another set of reviews and recommendations, we need a national, whole-of-government approach. All of this recent attention is a timely reminder that all stakeholders should take an interest in the Draft National Strategy for International Education now out for consultation. This is a one-off opportunity to have meaningful input into the future sustainability of Australia’ s international education sector. n
Phil Honeywood is chief executive of IEAA.
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