policy & reform
campusreview.com.au
Linus Faustin
Cash cows or human capital?
Perspectives on International
Students in Australia Seminar: Part 1
By Loren Smith
T
here was controversy before
Campus Review‘s latest conference,
Cash Cows or Human Capital?
Perspectives on International Students in
Australia, began.
“The title of this conference is offensive
to international students and to the staff
who teach and look after them,” an Edith
Cowan academic protested, via email, a
month in advance.
However, the tone of the event,
held in Sydney, was largely harmonious.
Its takeaways? We can and need to do
better to retain the flow of international
students, if this is even necessarily a
good thing.
SOMETHING TO CELEBRATE
Maybe the ECU academic misinterpreted
the phrase ‘cash cows’, but there’s no
denying its veracity: according to presenter
Aleksandr Voninski, UNSW and the
University of Sydney alone make $1 billion a
year from international students. But, before
he expounded on his topic – the push/pull
factors in international higher education –
the first presenter, StudyNSW director Peter
Mackey celebrated the upsides of hosting
international students down under.
Mackey, who leads the NSW government
unit responsible for delivering the state’s
international education strategy, outlined
the short and long-term gains offered by
international students. Yes, they increasingly
bring in cash – 21 per cent more than
10
they did in 2016 – but they also shore up
international relations. Next year will be the
40th anniversary of the NSW-Guangdong
Sister State agreement, which laid the
foundations for NSW being the top Australian
destination for overseas students.
International students like Sumiya Sultan,
the 2016 NSW International Student of
the Year, created initiatives like Women
in Science and Engineering (WISE) at
Macquarie University. Then, there are
community and staff-led programs that
benefit international students, such as
the University of Wollongong’s Illawarra
Committee for International Students,
which links retirees with international
students to manage isolation on both ends.
‘Interchange’ was particularly well-
received by conference attendees and
presenters. Mackey, who previously
worked in Hanoi and Singapore,
illustrated how the inter-NSW university
entrepreneurship-building program
provides international students with a
cherry on top of their usual learning.
“Offshore education experience is more
valued in Asia, even if students have poorer
grades, as it inculcates soft skills like the
ability to challenge authority.
“We are making a contribution to
human capital when they return home,”
Mackey said.
Ultimately, he said despite hefty profits
from overseas students, it is impossible
to know their true value, as, if they have a
great experience, “it can build connections
to Australia for generations”.
CRUMBS OF EMOTIONAL TRUTH
Despite statistics and the media reporting
booming international student numbers,
presenter Ruby Biscuit sees possible storm
clouds ahead. The director of pathways
provider Macquarie University International
College said such providers are “petri dishes”
for what’s coming to universities, and
they have seen a drop in enrolments from
China. This is sobering, given over a third
of international students in Australia, the
largest contingent, are Chinese.
Assuming the sector wants to rectify
this, Biscuit suggested emotion-centric
ways of doing so. “We are forgetting
the high levels of emotion attached to
decision making,” she said. “That’s what
empowers international students.”
Referencing Visible Learning creator
John Hattie, she noted that an “environment
that supports self-belief” is the greatest
contributor to learning. Within this, the
foremost relationship is the student-teacher
one. So, university lecturers may wish to
consider this in their interactions with not
only international but all students.
One way of achieving this is through
cultural competence training. Although
Biscuit thinks our attitudes are fine, she said
our skills and knowledge need work.
“We need more proactive programs,
particularly for domestic students,” she said.
An example of a useful skill to teach both
students and staff is how to use graded
(simplified) language when communicating
with international students.
In a survey conducted by her college,
international students reported nerves
around speaking English and shyness
as barriers to interaction with domestic
students, who in turn lamented international
students’ lack of participation in team work.
Yet there were also positive intercultural
interaction examples. Domestic students
praised international students’ maths
skills, while a Pakistani student, who saw
media reports about Australia before he
arrived here, said that it was less racist than
he expected.
“I think we are at a cultural turning point,
moving from egocentrism to allocentrism,
where we don’t think of our institutions
as the dominant culture, but as housing a
collective of cultures, exchanging equally,”
Biscuit surmised.
“Intercultural communication skills will set
us apart [from other countries].”
FROM THE STUDENT’S MOUTH
“My accent used to be thicker”, laughed
Tanzanian presenter Linus Faustin.
The 23-year-old international student