Topics: International student caps
Janeen Hosemans: The recent story on the slashing of numbers of international students from universities has made the sector understandably nervous. Joining us on the line to unpack this issue for us is the Shadow Minister for Education, Senator Sarah Henderson, good afternoon.
Senator Sarah Henderson: Janeen, good afternoon. Great to join you.
Janeen Hosemans: Thank you very much for taking the time out of your day to have a chat with us. Sarah, I wonder if you could just firstly explain where are we now with university numbers and what is proposed?
Senator Henderson: Well, I have to say that the government’s proposal to introduce international student caps, Janeen, is squarely as a result of the immigration mess which has happened over the last couple of years. So since the Albanese government was elected, we’ve seen a more than doubling of foreign students coming into Australia, and this has placed enormous pressure, particularly on the large cities. So we heard in the Senate inquiry this week that 500,000 international students have been forced into the private rental market. So that is causing real concerns in terms of housing affordability, but really deeply concerning Janeen is what’s happened to regional unis like Charles Sturt. So over the last six or seven months, the government has smashed the regional unis under what’s called Ministerial Direction, 107 so there was this huge increase in student visa approvals for the big end of town, the big public universities, the Group of Eight, but the regional unis were really brought to their knees with student visas going backwards at a rate of knots. So for instance, in the regional unis, there was a 37 per cent decrease in the number of international students who came to Australia, and that’s been devastating.
Janeen Hosemans: Why has the government particularly targeted regional universities, or it seems like they’ve targeted regional unis or private unis as such. What’s happening with that?
Senator Henderson: Well, frankly, I think it’s an absolute disgrace. So the education minister Jason Clare has looked after the big end of town in the last seven or eight months. From last year to this year, their student visa numbers have gone up 34 per cent to some 83,000 whereas for the regional unis, as I say, they’ve gone down 37 per cent to just 8,900 and so what the Home Affairs Department was doing was processing visas based on risk. There are more low risk, so called `low risk’, students from places like China who go to the big universities. But it was completely discriminatory and covert and arbitrary, and the regions really did pay the price for Labor’s immigration chaos, and that is not good enough.
Janeen Hosemans: The government did suggest that they had made these moves in order to ease the housing crisis. Do you accept that as a plausible reason?
Senator Henderson: Well, I do, but this is too little, too late from the government, which has been sitting on its hands for the last couple of years, opening the floodgates to massive amounts of immigration without having proper regard for our services, for the pressure on even things like going to the doctor, renting a house and so it has really been chaos with the way the government has mismanaged our immigration program. We have seen a re-setting of the numbers so there are now more student visas approved for regional unis, which is positive, but it won’t undo the damage the government has done.
Janeen Hosemans: I wonder if you might be able to tell us, because I think it’s a mystery to me and probably to a lot of other people out there, just how the funding model is worked out for universities, regional versus metropolitan. Is there some sort of matrix algorithm that’s used to determine who gets what and how much?
Senator Henderson: Well, look every university has a funding pact with the government, and that is very much dependent on how many Commonwealth supported places each university receives. So it is quite a complicated matrix. But in essence, the government pays in around about half of the university’s funding. And then, of course, universities, depending on the nature of their operations, raise funding, and all other different sorts of ways. But certainly at the very big universities, we’ve seen the massive surge of international student numbers. So last year at the University of Sydney, which has now 50 per cent of all students being foreign students, they made $1.5 billion out of foreign student fees. And so we think the balance is really getting out of kilter. We think the regions are paying the price, because every university bringing international students into the country needs to do so with a social license. And now that the Group of Eight is making the suggestion that domestic students may be cut as a result, which, frankly, is completely inappropriate. We have reminded universities that Australian students come first, and they have a fundamental responsibility to put Australian students first, to educate Australians. And so those sorts of threats that we have heard from the group of eight are disappointing.
Janeen Hosemans: Let me just ask you on that, is there an established quota of domestic students versus international students that universities actually have to adhere to, or is it left up to the individual institutions to work that out?
Senator Henderson: It depends on the funding of each university in terms of their Commonwealth supported places, but there is a lot of discretion on universities so they have a set number of CSPs or Commonwealth Supported Places, and universities are able to go over that and then to fund those students through, you know, student contributions, plus additional contributions from the universities. And some are doing a really good respect in a really good job in that respect. But one of the biggest issues Janeen with university funding is so much is unknown. We don’t know what it costs to deliver a course with any sort of clarity it is. There’s a lot of smoke and mirrors during the Senate inquiry into this particular bill before the parliament, we’ve asked a whole range of questions, and Jason Clare has gone out of his way to keep so much of what is going on in universities secret, which we don’t think is good enough. So we think greater transparency in our university sector, is very important, but at the end of the day, we want to make sure that our publicly funded universities do the job, and that is to educate Australians, to give them great education, great skills and great employment opportunities. And while that is happening to some degree, we have raised concerns about the experience that many students experience. The QILT Student Experience survey shows that one third of all Australian tertiary students are not happy with their education. And so we think that universities can do better. Focus on the basics, focus on the fundamentals, and make sure that they properly serve Australian students.
Janeen Hosemans: Could I ask you with that one in three that have suggested they’re not happy with their education, what particular aspects are they not happy with?
Senator Henderson: Look, there are a whole range of issues. So some relate to the learning experience, some relate to the lack of connectivity they have with others in campuses, there are varying different reasons why a student may not be happy. I mean, one of the issues I’ve raised Janeen is the need for an Australian University’s Performance Index so that every aspect of a university’s operations can be clearly seen. So for instance, if you enrol in a course and then find that 80 per cent of the course is delivered online when you’re expecting to go to uni, be on campus, go to lectures, meet your lecturer, and find, as I say, that most of the course is delivered online – frankly, I don’t think that’s good enough. So universities have got to be much more transparent about how their courses are being delivered and also who’s doing really well in terms of things like completion rates, what students are saying about particular teachers or lecturers. And so just imagine if we had that level of transparency that would really shine a light on the great courses, the great lecturers, the great universities, which are doing really good jobs, you know, in certain areas, because at the end of the day, as I say, Australian taxpayer funded universities are there to educate Australia.
Janeen Hosemans: It’s interesting you mentioned that because I was just about to say a performance index would seem like a no brainer, particularly when you’re talking about taxpayers money going into these universities. No doubt you flag this with Jason Clare. What sort of response have you got?
Senator Henderson: Well, I have been advocating for a performance index ever since I stepped into the portfolio more than a year ago. We haven’t seen the government express any interest in this issue. But frankly, if you are going to university, and of course, this has made so much more difficult because of the cost of student debt is going up dramatically under Labor. So it’s gone up by 16 per cent and even after the changes to HECS indexation, which are not yet through the parliament, we will still see an 11 per cent increase in student debt. So there are many students who are looking at going to university, contemplating the cost of going to university, and we want to see them being delivered the highest possible value in the degrees they do. And that’s why ranking universities in terms of their performance in every aspect of what they deliver is so incredibly important. We just haven’t seen that focus, frankly, by the government on what I say are fundamentals and that needs to change.
Janeen Hosemans: Senator Sarah Henderson, what a pleasure it is to speak with you. Thank you so much for your time.
Senator Henderson: It’s great to talk to you. And Janeen, thank you so much for your interest in a really important sector, and certainly for young Australians, including in Bathurst, I know they really want our universities to operate to their very best, potential, and we want to see that, too.
Janeen Hosemans: Absolutely. Thank you again. Enjoy the rest of your afternoon.