After COVID isolation, Australia struggles to bring students baper k
Categories: US Education News
Last year, Pakistani student Alee Khalid paid Southern Cross University 8,000 Australian dollars ($5,923) to study computer science on the mutually held assumption Australia’s borders would soon reopen.But as the pandemic dragged on and Australia remained closed to foreigners, Khalid’s only option was to study online.“They forced me to study virtually even though I said I didn’t want to because the internet in my village is unreliable and I would have to wake up at 3am to attend classes,” Khalid, 21, who is waiting on approval of a student visa, told Al Jazeera.“I want to study in Australia and experience all the country has to offer – not receive a poor education online. I applied for my visa nine months ago but there is still no reply from the Australian embassy. When I asked the university for help, they said they can’t do anything. It’s disgusting how they have treated me.”Southern Cross University said it does not comment publicly on individual students but that it is the student’s responsibility, not the university’s, to fulfil visa requirements. The university, which is based in northern New South Wales, also pointed out the Australian government’s border closures introduced in March 2020 had forced international students to remain overseas.Khalid’s case highlights a predicament for Australia’s universities, which heavily depend on international students’ fees: although Australia has been open to international students and other foreigners since December, thousands still remain overseas, and at least some of those are likely to give up waiting and go study elsewhere. ‘Turn the tap back on’ That could be an understatement. Only 58 percent of international students currently enrolled at Australian universities plan on returning to campuses this year, with 41 percent of those planning to study elsewhere, according to a recent survey by student support service provider Studiosity.“Australia’s institutions were fully aware that the policy settings that have been in place for the past two years meant it would be difficult to simply turn the tap back on,” Andrew Barkla, CEO of international education support organisation IDP, told Al Jazeera. “Students have grown tired of waiting to return,” said Barkla, whose organisation argues Australia’s reputation suffered immeasurable damage due to its strict border policies during the pandemic.By 2019, 27 percent of on-campus students were international students, according to the Department of Education. The share of international students at Australia’s top-ranked school, the University of Melbourne, hit 40 percent. At the University of Sydney, the proportion hit 42 percent.COVID-19, which hit Australia only weeks before the start of the 2020 teaching year, bolstered the argument that it was not. Any international student who had returned home for the summer break was unable to return. Enrolments of international students fell 7 percent that year compared with 2019 and fell by another 17 percent last year – while the number of students applying to study at Australian universities dropped by more than half between March and October of last year, according to Adventus, an international student recruitment marketplace.The University of Newcastle, which has had a presence in Singapore for more than 20 years, opened a new campus in the city-state in February. Set on the 13th floor of Singapore’s National Library, the campus offers degrees in business, engineering, IT and health, and serves as a halfway house for international students from China. On Saturday, Monash University will formally open a new campus in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta. Offering postgraduate courses in data science, public policy, urban design and business innovation, it will be the first international university in Indonesia.“Our purpose is to contribute to the success of education in Indonesia. We are not there to be a recruiting machine for Monash campuses in Australia,” Monash University Indonesia president Andrew MacIntyre told Al Jazeera.