news
campusreview.com.au
WSU
sticks to
refugee
plans
Shergold says cuts in funding won’t
sway institution from efforts to provide
access to higher education.
P
rofessor Peter Shergold, the top public servant in New South
Wales refugee resettlement and the recently re-installed
Western Sydney University chancellor, said the 20 per cent
federal government cut to universities would not impede his
institution’s efforts to give refugees accessible higher education.
Shergold said if government would not provide WSU with
sufficient funds to help refugees – via scholarship programs, for
example – the university would “get individuals, philanthropists and
companies, under their corporate social responsibility guidelines,
to help support us”.
WSU set aside $500,000 last year for a scholarship fund for
refugees. Many NSW universities have followed suit with similar
initiatives. But as the Barriers to Education for People Seeking Asylum
and Refugees on Temporary Visas report from the Refugee Council
of Australia identified at the end of last year, universities can only do
so much. There are immense policy hurdles, mainly for temporary
refugees and asylum seekers, who want to access higher and
vocational education. The main barrier is that they are ineligible for
government loan schemes.
“Most people seeking asylum and refugees on temporary visas
are unable to access concession rates for TAFE from states and
territories,” the report read. “Without government support, people are
forced to pay international student rates to attend TAFE and university.
The costs of these fees can be in the thousands of dollars, preventing
them from furthering their education.”
Shergold didn’t say whether he would specifically lobby for
the HELP scheme to be adjusted to include asylum seekers and
those on temporary protection visas. Instead, he said: “I am
trying to make sure that refugees, once accepted, are given every
opportunity to succeed in Australia, that they receive the support
services but also the chance to get the level of English they need to
get education, to get jobs, to get careers, to build small businesses.
That’s the part I’m involved in. n
Curtin students shot in US
Busted drug deal lands mining games
participants in Louisiana hospital.
T
wo Curtin University students,
Toben Clements and Jake
Rovacsek, suffered gunshot
wounds while holidaying in New Orleans,
Louisiana, in the US, in early April, shortly
after representing the Perth university at the
Intercollegiate Mini