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ON CAMPUS how this can happen and what they would need to do to make this work.
Is there anything else these students find difficult or dislike about studying in Australia? They obviously dislike racism. They’ re all aware of it. They’ ve either been the target of racist abuse in public, in graffiti, or in other direct examples, or they’ ve been subject to it in less direct ways – stereotyping and so on. And they dislike the way local students are indifferent towards them.
They really dislike what they – I think rightly – perceive as high levels of ignorance and prejudice about China on the part of people in general. Not all people here, of course, but many people they meet would not have much clue about contemporary China and might be prejudiced against it. And they dislike perceptions of prejudice among certain academic staff as well, as rightly they should. It’ s not something they should have to deal with.
Did they have any comments on the quality of our education? My study mainly looks at their social experience, so I’ m not directly asking them that question, but it comes up in conversation. Most studies done about that question show that the levels of satisfaction with the educational outcome are okay. Some show they’ re very okay, like over 80 per cent.
I’ m doing in-depth work with a very small number of students, so it’ s not like a survey. What I get is detailed discussions of a particular lecturer or detailed discussions of a particular subject or course, and there are certainly complaints about perceptions of prejudice. One participant told me her lecturer at a Victorian university had given handouts to the local students for revisions but not to the international students. If that’ s the case, I can’ t imagine what that person is thinking. That’ s just one example of many, but that’ s not the norm. The norm is, over the course of a whole degree, things turn out okay. Even if you have one or two tutors or lecturers who you feel are not great, generally the quality of education is all right.
Would you say their experience as a cohort has been positive? In general, yes. If things continue as they are, they’ re not going to say they regretted coming or anything like that. But, of course, it’ s a mixed picture, and it depends which aspect we’ re looking at. I do think that a lingering disappointment will be how hard it’ s been to make more effective connections with local peers and local culture more generally.
You’ re developing recommendations. Obviously, you’ ve yet to finalise them, but can you share any potential ones so far? I do have some ideas for what I’ ll eventually schematise into recommendations.
The first is about the way information is provided to students and their families. It would be beneficial to do this much more consistently in multilingual formats and not just in English. Specifically, offering accurate, up‐to-date information about important things outside of university: their rights as a tenant, how the health system works, why you go to a GP instead of a hospital, what your overseas student health insurance covers, what your rights are as a worker, how you calculate what wage you should be earning for your job, what the tax-free threshold is, what wage theft is, how common it is in the hospitality industry, and so on.
These students can read English, but we all know it’ s easier to read something, particularly important information, in your own language. So they tend to find this information in Chinese circulated informally through WeChat public accounts, and it’ s not always accurate.
The second idea relates to allowing students, when they graduate, to apply for a graduate working visa. This visa is one way the Australian government encourages international students to choose Australia. You can come here and, after you finish your degree, you get the chance to work in Australia for a year or two. That sounds very attractive. That’ s something other countries don’ t offer.
However, many Australian businesses refuse to offer internships or jobs to applicants who don’ t have permanent residency. In other words, the graduate working visa is not enough to get you the job experience you want in the area of your study, and that seems contradictory to me.
Thirdly, as part of this study, with some colleagues from the Burnet Institute of Medical Research, we’ ve done a large survey of Chinese international students’ experiences, knowledges and understandings of sex and sex education.
We haven’ t analysed all that data yet, but there may be a need for some targeted sex education, particularly on safer sex, because sex ed is often missing in the Chinese education system. It’ s supposed to be there, but a lot of teachers, anecdotally, skip that part. So when 17, 18, 19 and 20-year-olds come from overseas to study, some education on safer sex might be a helpful thing we could provide.
And finally, we should think about how to orient domestic students towards the international students they’ re sitting next to in class, so that collectively both cohorts can learn from each other and value-add to their overall educational experiences.
How would you like to see this data used once the study is finished? Hopefully, it has academic applicability and some practical or more direct applicability as well. I will write an academic monograph out of the study which I hope will deliver new insights into a few things, certainly into the lived experiences of China’ s current generation of urban middle-class women and the changing understandings of gender and what it means to be female.
More broadly, I hope to deliver new insights into how it feels for people living under conditions of increased personal mobility, how it feels to be a person who’ s on the move professionally and educationally and just generally throughout one’ s life course. How it affects one’ s sense of one’ s self, one’ s sense of one’ s identity – whether in gendered terms or national culture terms
They really dislike what they... perceive as high levels of ignorance and prejudice about China.
and so on – one’ s view of the world and one’ s place within it, so a contribution to mobility studies there, I guess.
In terms of Australia’ s higher education sector, I’ m hoping to contribute to broadlevel reflections on the changing nature of higher education in Australia in the context of educational globalisation, and to ask, along with other scholars in this field, where we’ re headed and how we can best meet the challenges of the new internationalised educational environment. ■ * Name changed to protect identity.
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