International students and university staff concerned about impact of future cap on overseas student numbers

1 year ago

The federal government has announced the number of international students starting at Australian universities and vocational training providers will be capped at 270,000 from next year.

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00:00Universities, the latest battleground of a major political stoush.

00:11The overall number of international students starting a course next year will be set at

00:15270,000.

00:16I think that that's not right.

00:20I think it's really concerning.

00:21This is bad policy.

00:23It's bad for Victoria.

00:25The Federal Government's plan to cap Victoria's most lucrative commodity, the international

00:29student, hasn't gone down well in the so-called education state.

00:34Imagine the Australian Government announcing a cap on iron ore exports.

00:38Imagine what an outcry there would be.

00:41Not since Scott Morrison basically told international students to go home could we have come up

00:47with a more fundamentally destructive decision.

00:52The state's richest education institution, Melbourne University, boasts that about a quarter

00:57of its students hold international visas.

00:59I've come here to speak to its Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Global Engagement, Professor Michael Wesley.

01:05Hi, Ross.

01:06Michael.

01:07Good to see you.

01:08Good to see you too.

01:09Professor Michael Wesley, welcome to Stateline.

01:11The Federal Government has announced a cap on New Start international students.

01:15What will that mean for Melbourne University?

01:18Well we're still working through the detail of what it means.

01:22The cap that we've been given takes a little bit of working through.

01:26Will that mean job cuts, perhaps even cuts to entire faculties as a result of this?

01:31Look, very hard to tell at this stage.

01:34Again, we're working through what it all means.

01:36We're doing modelling at the moment, but until we have complete certainty on what that number

01:41means and what it means in terms of our trajectory of finances over the last couple of years,

01:49we're not quite sure.

01:51The Government's rationale for the caps is to make it fairer for smaller universities

01:56in the regions.

01:57These reforms are designed to make it better and fairer and set it up on a more sustainable

02:02footing going forward.

02:04The Education Minister Jason Clare says this is about making it fairer for regional universities.

02:10Isn't that the case?

02:12Isn't the structure of this cap designed to help regional universities?

02:17That's the way it's designed.

02:18I'm not sure it's going to work that way.

02:21Friends that I have who work at regional universities are really in despair because the visa slowdown

02:29that was announced earlier this year has really meant that the number of visas granted to

02:35students wanting to study at Australia's regional universities has plummeted.

02:41That means that it's really destroyed the pipeline of students coming in to those universities.

02:46What that means in practice is that even though they've been given relatively high caps, they

02:52are very pessimistic that they'll actually be able to get anywhere near those caps.

02:59And then there's the question of housing and whether a drop in international students will

03:03result in a rise in inner city housing stock.

03:06Well we really don't know because we don't know what the impact of these numbers will

03:10be on the housing market.

03:13I'm not a specialist on the economics of housing but from what experts that I've been listening

03:18to and talking to have said is that this will have at best an extremely marginal impact

03:26on the availability of accommodation, on the cost of accommodation, on the cost of living.

03:33I have friends from overseas who are already considering going to other destinations which

03:39are slightly more welcoming.

03:41What is the demand like now compared to previous years from international students?

03:47We're seeing real weakening of demand.

03:50I think the uncertainty that's been brought on by the slowing of visa processing, the

03:56increase in the visa application fee to the most expensive fee in the English speaking

04:01world and the prospect of caps has sent enormous uncertainty into international student populations

04:10overseas and it's really made them start to think twice about applying to an Australian

04:16university.

04:18We know how this looks because the Canadians have done this, all of this, 12 months before

04:23we did and the Canadian university system is in real trouble.

04:28The Premier heads to India next week.

04:31Victoria's largest source of international students are from India.

04:35You can understand why I'm proud to be making my first trip as Premier in a few weeks' time

04:40to India.

04:42And her sell may have just become a little harder.

04:45One of the biggest international student markets is of course India.

04:48The Premier is going there at the end of next week.

04:50What do you hope comes from that trip?

04:53It sends a very clear signal that Victoria takes its relationship with India very, very

05:01seriously.

05:03It's important for the education sector because she will be a very senior political leader

05:08from Australia going to India at this time of uncertainty and saying Victoria is still

05:15open for business.

05:17We are still open, we are still welcoming of international students.

05:21We have the largest Indian diaspora population in the world.

05:25We're very welcoming to people of Indian background and people who are Indian citizens.

05:30I think she will be an enormously positive message and signal to send.

05:38For more UN videos visit www.un.org

International students and university staff concerned about impact of future cap on overseas student numbers

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