The great immigration scab grab is on, with the edu-migration industry launching a plan with the federal government to flood Australia with international students by directly linking student visas with work rights and permanent residency:
Phil Honeywood, executive director of the International Education Association of Australia, said closed borders had revealed cracks in the international student industry, including community resentment to large numbers of students on campuses and in inner cities…
His association will be launching a campaign within weeks to persuade the public of the benefits to the broader community of international education, including jobs, diversity and the flow of skilled labour.
Indeed, universities are pushing Education Minister Alan Tudge and Immigration Minister Alex Hawke to reform the student visa system to more directly link education with skilled jobs and permanent residency, similar to the policies introduced under the Howard government.
Mr Honeywood said the IEAA had provided a policy paper to Mr Tudge and Mr Hawke that proposed that any international student who undertakes an additional professional year in skills shortage areas should be given double the migration points to permanent residency.
In another pitch to government, the Australian Technology Network has also proposed linking student visas to jobs.
“COVID-19 has exposed the fault lines around education and skills gaps. Business and universities have come to a similar conclusion which is that the two need to be put together,” said Professor Ian Martin, chair of the ATN…
“If we have key workforce shortages, which cannot be met from domestic demand, then let’s structure an international education and skilled migration pathway that delivers on that.”
Catriona Jackson, chief executive of peak group Universities Australia…said she was “optimistic” that new arrangements would be in place relatively soon…
“I think there’s really a clear realisation across Commonwealth and state governments, that it’s absolutely essential just to maintain the health of the Australian economy to get students back into the country, along with skilled and unskilled workers and many others on working visas.”
May I remind our policy makers that Australian voters do not support the mass return of international students, nor a return to pre-COVID levels of immigration.
This was made abundantly clear in the latest survey from the The Australian Population Research Institute (TAPRI), which showed that 70% of Australians oppose a return to pre-COVID levels of immigration:
The majority (58%) of Australians also do not want international student numbers to return to their pre-COVID level:
Only two months ago, Monash University’s Centre for Youth Policy and Education Practice released a report showing that Australian graduates are struggling to gain secure employment and decent pay amid the tidal wave of students competing for work and jobs:
The value of higher education in launching young Australians into the career of their choice is being eroded as universities churn out record numbers of graduates who are increasingly forced to take on low-paid, insecure work…
Young people face “the breakdown of a long-held assumption that higher education qualifications will lead to desirable and secure work”…
Young people are increasingly concentrated in fields that are “seasonal, part-time, casual, low-wage and insecure”.
“The link between attainment of higher education qualifications and the movement into certain professions is not happening in a linear way any more,” centre director and report author Lucas Walsh said…
The link between post-school study and a higher income is also eroding, the report shows.
International education was already more of a people-importing immigration industry than a genuine export industry, since it is primarily concerned about selling international students work rights and permanent residency than education services. The changes proposed above by the edu-migration rent-seekers would only make the situation much worse.
Indeed, if access to work rights and permanent residency were curtailed then the entire international education industry would collapse. That’s how much of an immigration industry it really is.
Any move to ramp-up international student numbers and immigration will also inevitably require entry standards to be eroded even further. Doing so would be disastrous for the long-run productivity and prosperity of Australia, which hinges upon quality education.
As noted by The Australian’s higher education shill, Tim Dodd:
“Too many of the expanding numbers of students from India and the sub continent were in low quality, generic business courses, and hoping for permanent residency without having in-demand skills”.
Instead of lowering standards even further, Australia’s international education system should target a smaller intake of higher quality students via:
- Raising entry standards (particularly English-language proficiency);
- Raising financial requirements needed to enter Australia; and
- Removing the link between studying, work rights and permanent residency.
These reforms would lift student quality, would raise genuine export revenues per student, would remove competition in the jobs market, and would lower enrolment numbers to sensible and sustainable levels that are more in line with international norms.
They would also help to improve teaching standards and the experience for domestic students, which should be our universities’ number one priority.
In short, international education needs to become a genuine export industry rather than a people importing immigration industry. We must restore Australia’s universities back to being about ‘higher learning’ rather than ‘higher earning’.
Sadly, we all know these reforms won’t happen. Our policy makers will instead crater entry and teaching standards to entice as many warm bodies to Australia as they can get. The ‘growth lobby’ and edu-migration industry demands it and pulls the policy strings.
Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness.
Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.
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