S03E02 - Past, Present, Future: How COVID-19 has Affected our International Students

December 2, 2020 Jay Ooi

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Shoes Off S03E02 - Past, Present, Future: How COVID-19 has Affected our International Students Shoes Off

Transcript

Yidi Yan:

I feel very confused because ...well, it's no news that international students are cash cows. But the government just made it so obvious that international students equal money.

Benny:

But I was very upset one time, the government announcing saying, "If you cannot afford to stay in Australia, it's time for you to go home." Which I don't think is very inclusive message or welcome message to international students.

Jay:

When COVID-19 hit Australia, what was the government’s response? And what was the experience for our international students?

Hello and welcome to Shoes Off, stories about Asian Australian culture. I’m Jay Ooi.

2020 hasn’t exactly been easy, but for one group of people in Australia, it has been particularly challenging. As a country that has such an unique and intertwined relationship with international students, what does it say about us when the government specifically excludes them from welfare support and rushes them to go home in the middle of a global crisis? To answer this question, I’m handing over to reporter Lucy Xu.

Lucy:

Hi Jay!

Jay:

Hey Lucy! Do you want to tell us a bit about why you’re interested in this topic?

Lucy:

Yes, so I have a strong interest in journalism, storytelling and writing, anything that are about promoting the voices of Asian-Australians. A little bit about myself, I actually spent my childhood in China, but I was born here and moved back when I was one, and then I moved back to Australia again when I was 12, so my mother tongue is actually Mandarin. When I hit university, I made an effort to make a lot of international student friends, especially the Chinese international students because I had the language and I was quite curious about what their life was like. During my university years, I noticed a lot of my Australian friends didn’t make an effort to try to get to know them but yet have their own perceptions about them. And because of this, I feel like a lot of their stories and a lot of their voices are overlooked by both the media as well as the general public in Australia. So that’s why I wanted to pursue this topic.

Jay:

Awesome, well I’m so glad you brought this topic to my attention, and I’m excited for what we’ll learn today. On with the show!

Lucy:

What do Australians think of when we mention international students? Is it money? Is it China? Or is it diversity? I am sure each one of us has different things that pop up in our heads. When the pandemic struck, the Australian media unanimously jumped straight to the financial loss narrative, after all, it has been estimated that universities are to lose around $3-4.6 billion dollars from international student fees alone in 2020. And so I wondered, how did we get to this point of being so reliant on international student fees?

Angela Lehmann:

So, international education and our university sector have kind of grown up together, in a way. And I don't think that's really told enough. This has been a long history and in conjunction with the growth of our universities. It's not just been like an add on at the end, that we've all kind of gotten very greedy, very fast.

My name's Doctor Angela Lehmann and I was brought up in a small town in country New South Wales. I am an education analyst at the The Lygon Group, which is an international higher education consultancy. I also have honorary positions at The College of Arts and Social Sciences at the ANU and also at the University of Xiamen in Mainland China.

Lucy:

Dr Lehmann was the only foreign faculty member at The University of Xiamen when she started working there, and this period has taught her a lot about some of the assumptions we make in Western classrooms.

Angela Lehmann:

It makes you really, really heightened aware that our knowledge comes from a very Western, really narrow viewpoint of history and of power and of colonialism and there’s a story that is told and we in the West seems to just accept that story.

Lucy:

Contrary to what many believe, Australia’s international student presence isn’t a new phenomenon, and in fact it goes as far back as the 1920s. To understand our current relationship with international students, I decided to take a step back and examine the long-winded history of international education in Australia.

Julia Horne:

My name is Julia, Julia Horne. My cultural background, I actually call myself Australian, but it's very multi-national and I'm an associate professor in history at The University of Sydney and my research area is actually universities, so history of universities.

Jay:

Yes, Professor Horne has the very interesting job of researching the history of universities themselves, so what is our history with international students?

Julia Horne:

So at Sydney University, the first Chinese student that we know about arrived in 1923 for a one year study program it seemed. It might be just worthwhile saying here that in the first half of the 20th century, we now know that universities actually saw a real importance in having students from the neighboring regions, so from China, from Japan, from India. They wanted them to come to Australia, not in the numbers that we now see them in, but as a sort of I guess good will.

There was a sense in which there could be cultural and educational exchange which wasn't looked upon very favourably by the Australian Government under the White Australia policy, so there a bit of negotiating around that.

Lucy:

So even though we had this White Australia Policy, universities were pushing the boundaries because they saw the importance of these cultural exchanges.

Julia Horne:

From the fifties, the restrictions that had been imposed by the Australian Government, started to be loosened and that I think is largely a consequence of universities rather lobbying the Commonwealth Government to do so.

Lucy:

That’s right, universities might have played a role in the relaxation of white Australia policies. And we see this reflected in subsequent government policies on higher education.

Julia Horne:

So the Colombo Plan was I think largely an Australian Government initiative introduced in 1951, in order to provide scholarships, largely short term scholarships for people to come and train in Australia. And some of those came to Australian universities, and it was a very public plan and also an important cornerstone of the Australian Government showing some diplomatic goodwill to our neighbors. Now, what is interesting is that that was not the main source of overseas students or international students for universities. In fact, far more important was a scheme that no one knew anything about, which wasn't publicized, but which was known amongst government circles as Private Overseas Student program. So the response was that these students would be allowed to come in to study at our schools, so they'd be allowed to come in and live here. They could work. They could also sit for the matriculation exam that got them into university. And as a consequence of that, they would be able to win a Commonwealth Government scholarship which would cover their fees and also might give them a living allowance. And if they didn't win a Commonwealth, because only about 65% or so of students who went to universities were on Commonwealth scholarships, then they would be allowed to pay the same subsidized fees as other Australians.So in other words, they were to be treated as other Australians. And then after that, their visa would allow them ... I'm not sure it was called a visa in those times, but they'd be allowed to stay for several years to work in a job that related to their degree, so in that professional job. And then from 1966, But after five to seven years of having lived here, they could actually apply to become Australian citizens.

Lucy:

Okay, that was a lot to take in, but in short, the international education landscape from the 50s to the 80s consisted of two main initiatives: The Colombo Plan and the Private Overseas Student program.

Jay:

Both of them welcomed students from our neighbouring countries to come to Australia to study at very minimal cost; they were either on a scholarship (so their fees and living cost were covered) or they would be paying the same fees as other Australians.

Lucy:

Yes you heard it right, international students did not have to pay much to study in Australia.

Julia Horne:

Nonetheless if you add all that time up along with the time it takes for a university degree and then the fact that they could stay and work, you're talking about upwards of seven years that a person, an overseas student invested in Australia. That means that overseas students became part of our cultural fabric, is the only way I can put it.

Lucy:

Despite the broader geopolitical issues at the beginning of the 20th century, it seems as though a relationship of education good-will was starting to blossom and develop, and not in the financial sense, but a genuine interest to share knowledge and to provide them with an immersive experience. And this is particularly personal to me because my dad was an international student in the 90’s and I was actually born while he was in Australia. I know it was a little later than this period we’re talking about, but even though we moved to China when I was a baby, they were significant years for him. He used to talk about it a lot and often reminisced on his time here, and we actually ended up moving back to Australia when I was 12. So this good-will cultural exchange is exactly the sort of exchange my dad got - he didn’t pay big money to come study here, and he definitely was not seen as a cash cow.

Jay:

This is probably very different to how most of us view international students today. But a lot has changed since the 50’s, so how did we get to where we are now?

Julia Horne:

So there's one key turning point in the 1980s, when the then minister for trade, John Dawkins, who later became the minister for education at the Commonwealth level, actually, he gave a speech as the minister for trade, seeing that current overseas students, who were in Australia, could actually be seen as an export industry. Well, not the students themselves, but the notion of international education. And that was a part of a broader conversation that was happening in the UK, in the US, in many places, France and so forth. So he wasn't the first one to say that, he was just I think making that connection.

Lucy:

So when universities become more commercialised, international students start to look like a convenient source of extra income.

Julia Horne:

In 1985, I think is the year when under the Labor Government, the ability to charge full fees for just some courses was introduced, and we need to remember, again, that affected very few international students. So it's not until 1990, at a time when the whole university system was being restructured anyway, that the Australian government brought in, from now on, international students who will be called international students, will be charged full fees for any course they do. So that's the big change at that point.

Lucy:

This brings us back to Dr Lehmann’s point made at the beginning of this episode; that in fact our higher education sector itself grew up together with the expansion of international education.

Julia Horne:

Then, through the nineties, in fact the numbers of international students don't really change from what they had been, and it's not until the early 2000s that the numbers start to go up. And we now know that's because government funding for, in particular, research was going down. And as public universities, they have certain limitations on what they can and can't charge. One of the few things they could charge for were undergraduate and post-graduate courses for international students. I think now everyone who studies higher education feels very comfortable with the notion that international student numbers go up, as a way of covering the government shortfall for research.

Jay:

So as more university funding is cut from the government, it becomes almost necessary for them to take more international students to cover the shortfall.

Lucy:

So what have we learnt so far? Whilst international student income has seen a big increase in the last two decades, I think one key take-away is we have this long history of engagement focused on cultural exchange within universities and beyond. And this history is intertwined with the restructuring of our universities itself.

Jumping back to more recent times, we’ve seen international students, particularly Chinese international students being painted in a certain way which has been exacerbated by COVID-19. Where has this come from?

Angela Lehmann:

If you look back at the history of international higher ed in Australia, you can see the same kind of arguments that we see now being presented about international students in Australia have been thrown around in the media for as long as we've had international students. So, you can read some history about this sector, and you can see that there's complaints that international students, they're all wealthy and they're not deserving of our taxpayer funding, and that it's a backdoor to migration. And these kinds of arguments, which we hear today. So, the arguments have been there for a long time, that's probably my first point.

The second point is more about COVID and fear, I guess. Fear, particularly of China at the moment. It also became kind of quite racialized, a lot of this discourse about the virus as well. We've seen a lot of reports recently about violence and racism towards Asian people and particularly, that's led a little bit by this fear of China. But it's led to this real stigmatization, I guess we could say, of Asian people as some kind of disease carriers in some way, which is really horrifying.

Lucy:

So we’ve seen international students being painted in a certain way, and we’ve also seen China being painted in a certain way in Australia, so when you combine these two together, particularly with the onset of COVID-19, you get Chinese international students being essentially vilified.

Angela Lehmann:

I think it's also an issue that Australia needs to confront and address, because when the Chinese government recently made an announcement or a warning to students that there may be racist attacks or incidents in Australia, a lot of people in Australia went, "Oh, that's just the Chinese government making threats. And we don't have any problems with racism in Australia." And to that, I say, hang on a minute. I think we do. And I think there's some conversations that we need to have, particularly when we're talking about disease and public health.

Benny:

I do feel like it's getting more and more intense with the geopolitical issue between Australia and China compared to my previous experience when I first came to Sydney in 2017, and compared to the entire environment now, I can very much feel like people might have bias when they see you as Asian, especially as a Chinese international student.

Lucy:

That was Benny, an international student from China at The University of Sydney.

Benny:

So I do feel like the government and the universities have to actually take a stand to support international students.

Lucy:

I was actually in China when COVID was still regarded as an epidemic back in February, and as the situation worsened, I just had this bad feeling in the pit of my stomach that this is going to turn racial, sure enough it did. Australia issued a travel ban on China on the 1st February, although the ban itself seemed justified as China had the highest infection rate at the time, the way the policy was framed and instructed proceeded to have severe consequences to both Asians in and outside of Australia.

I spoke to Yidi and Benny, both international students from China.

Lucy Xu:

when Australia issued a ban on China back in February, what was your reaction? Where were you and how did you feel about it?

Yidi:

So I saw a lot of articles saying that, oh, this policy is so unfair to the Chinese students. But I feel like, to be perfectly honest, the policy was reasonable at that time because the coronavirus was pretty serious at the time in China. But indeed, at the same time, the policy aroused hostile sentiment towards Asian groups in Australian society. And also created a lot of trouble for the students in China. But because education in Australia is such a big business. And we all know that the Chinese students are the biggest client for Australia. So the problem kind of is politicized in a way.

Jay:

Benny, whose flight from China to Sydney was scheduled on the day after the ban was announced, has a more dramatic story.

Lucy:

He took the option of staying in Thailand for 14 days in order to get back to Sydney since he couldn’t come directly to Australia. As it turned out, this option was viable and loads of students opted for this route.

Benny:

Oh, that was actually a very traumatic story because they actually released the ban on Saturday and my flight ticket was actually on Sunday. The ban released on the second I remember, right? And I actually went to Thailand on the third. I'm actually the first when people were going to Thailand look into their options.

But one of the other things, because the government announced saying it's 14 days quarantine, but when I'm about to go to the airports, the airline company talking to me saying, "Yeah, it's now changed to 15 days." So it's quite dramatic again, I got rejected to get on the board again saying like, "Yeah, you have to do another day."

So like that was quite confusing and it's not very helpful because I never got that message, I only got that after I went to the Thailand airport. I think it would be great to actually keep the message all the same.

Lucy Xu:

And how do you feel about the policy itself?

Benny:

I think, because there actually is not only cases in China, but there's some other emerging cases as well, and when you look into other countries, because the state announced the same ban as well, but they gave people a week time to actually prepare themselves or to maybe think for other options. But in Australia, they announce it on the second and the ban actually takes effect on the next day. So, you don't give people any time to react to it. Because back at that time, I think many of us actually held three to five plane tickets, because everyone had plan B, plan C, plan D. We don't have any control of the situation, but I think still many of us haven't got any plane tickets refund. So I think it is just very hard decisionds to make for us as students.

Jay:

I think Benny’s story can be summarised in one word: chaotic.

Lucy:

In fact, this was the general consensus among the cohort. The lack of communication from the government’s front and the abruptness of the policy left the international students in so much disarray, one could only imagine the burden both financially and mentally.

Lucy:

So with international students already alienated before they land, what did our government respond when COVID-19 reached Australia?

Lucy Xu:

Could you briefly explain what are the current policies in place for international students who are temporary visa holders from the Australian government right now?

Angela Lehmann:

The first thing, I guess was that international students are able to access some of their superannuation, which was of varying use, I think, to some international students. International students were not eligible to access funding schemes, like job keeper and job seeker, which has really placed a lot of difficulties on a lot of international students who were in a very vulnerable position with their part-time jobs. So, international students are by law allowed to work up to 40 hours a fortnight. Many of these, you can imagine, work in sectors like retail or hospitality, it’s a part-time job while they're at university. And of course, as we know, these were often the first jobs to go under the COVID shut-down.

And they were in casual jobs, so they had no job security. So, you suddenly had a lot of university students, international students who lost their income source. The other side of this that I think we need to acknowledge is that this is global mobility. So, we have students here whose families might be in India or Malaysia or Indonesia, whose families might be in an even more difficult situation in terms of the COVID virus than their family member that's here studying is. So, I've spoken to students who have told me that their families back in their home country actually don't have as much money to support them either right now. So, we have young people in our country who are very economically vulnerable. So, that's going back to the policy through, they weren't eligible for those. So, there was a lot of, I guess, complaints and concerns in the sector about that.

Jay:

It seems odd to me that we knowingly accept so much money from international students, yet we’re unwilling to help them during this incredibly difficult time, especially when they’re not all from wealthy families like we think they are.

Angela Lehmann:

But what has ended up happening, I think, which is quite positive is that the state governments and the Study New South Wales, Study Perth, these study groups, which are the state government arms, have really done well in providing welfare and support, whether it's through food vouchers, accommodation and various quite innovative ways to support international students. And universities themselves have provided small amounts of emergency relief money. So, even though at that federal level, I think it was quite symbolic that international students weren't included. But at the state level and at the university level, there have been some supportive policies.

Jay:

There was another significant change with the visa program back in July when we spoke to Dr Lehmann, which was actually really beneficial for international students.

Angela Lehmann:

This might have passed people by if they're not really into watching this space. But this was really significant. And what this means is that there was a few changes announced. But the main ones really were that international students in Australia are allowed and are guaranteed as part of what they're essentially purchasing when they come to study here, is that they can then stay and work in Australia for a few years after they graduate. And this is of really big importance to the sector because we know that international students really value this. And our competitor countries also have these policies. So, it's important that we have this.

Angela Lehmann:

However, as part of our regulation, you have to be studying in Australia to be eligible for that post-study work rights. And so, there's been a lot of lobbying and hard work behind the scenes in Australian university sector to encourage the government to protect that visa for students who are not able to be in Australia. So, last week on Monday, the government announced that protection. So, students that are studying offshore because of COVID are now still eligible for their Post Study Work Rights Visa.

Lucy:

This change is particularly significant, because we know a lot of students did return home during COVID, but would like to work in Australia post-graduation, this change has meant that these aspirations can be fulfilled in the future despite the current circumstances.

Yidi, is one of many international students who planned to work in Australia for a few years after graduation, but changed her plan due to COVID.

Lucy Xu:

Before COVID, what was your original plan as a fresh international student graduate from USYD?

Yidi Yan:

I plan to apply for the graduate visa, which allows me to stay here for another two years to work. And find a job, yes, that's my original plan. So I haven't got any job so far, so I plan to just go for a masters degree to extend the years I can stay in Australia to get a job.

Angela Lehmann:

Also, another significant part of that package of policy changes was that you can now apply for your Post Study Work Rights Visa while you're offshore, which usually you had to finish your studies in Australia and then apply for your visa while you're on shore. But that's changed. I mean, these are all temporary measures. And as soon as the COVID crisis finishes, it'll revert. But I think they're quite significant for students who are really undergoing a really, really difficult time.

The other part of it was that they announced that they're going to start processing visas again, which even though our borders are still closed, it demonstrates a kind of symbolic hope, I guess, that this is going to come to an end at some point.

Lucy Xu:

What do you think about these policies from the government in supporting international students?

Angela Lehmann:

I think they've slowly improved. At the beginning of COVID, I think that there was a lack of focus on both the student support and the visa work, because students really were really stuck.

And I thought, particularly around that time of the, "Go home," comment, this really did leave students feeling really on their own.

Jay:

To give a bit of context, on 3rd of April, Scott Morrison issued a statement to temporary visa holders (aka. International students) that quote ‘it’s time to go home’.

Lucy:

To me, this comment really stings, it already implies that support for international students will not be expected, so you either leave now or you will be left on your own. Yidi and Benny’s remarks at the beginning of this episode were their reaction to this comment, both were clearly quite upset and disappointed.

Yidi Yan:

I feel very confused because ... well, it's no news that international students are cash cows. But the government just made it so obvious that international students equal money. I should be eligible to stay here and work here and earn a life here. But he just like, go away, go home. Yeah, that's really bad.

Benny:

Also, I feel like the international student didn't really get that much support from the government compared to domestic people. I know a lot of my domestic friends, they have JobKeeper and JobSeeker. Especially I know that international students actually secure lots of jobs for domestic people and actually bring a lot of opportunities and revenue streams for people, I don't think it's the kind of message used delivering to the community.

Angela Lehmann:

And I think that was a really poignant turning point for the way that a lot of international students felt in Australia and also a lot of people in Australia, it kind of gave license to this idea that international students are somehow threatening our health or they're going to get in the way of us achieving success in our public health. So, it separated international students as being dangerous in some way. And I think that was felt deeply, I think, by a lot of international students.

Julia Horne:

I think they could do much more. I think it's ... I want to use the word shameful almost, because I think that what they're not recognizing perhaps is that international students, they don't come here just for two weeks. It varies how long they stay here, but they become integral members of the community, and I think I'm right in saying that most work, so they're contributing taxes even, and they're living like the rest of us. So to say you should be going home, I think it was just...it did not recognize the reality of the situation, which is the fact that international students live here.

Lucy Xu:

And what do you think about the university's responses, especially their stance towards international students? Do you think they’re better or rose, and how have you been supported from the university side during this whole time?

Benny:

I think they're quite understanding to be honest, especially in the last semester when Covid was during outbreak, there was a lot of people applying for defer, I think university is very understanding on their part, so they can help you make any adjustment to your degree. I know the university is trying to connect students remotely because it's all on the virtual space. People can be lonely or find a bit of distance all the time. But I think the uni has been trying their best, but there's still limited resources you can utilise in the virtual space. So I think I very much understand that, but I do feel the university should try harder to work with the government actually to bring students back as soon as possible. Because I'm lucky to actually I can get back to Sydney at that point and I can still continue my study here, I can still have somehow the experience I used to have previously, but there are lots of students that don't even get a chance to come to Australia. And a lot of master degrees is only one year or one year and half, so they might actually finish their entire degree at theor home, paying the same fee as used to be. So I don't think they actually get exactly the same experience they should get paying them much, so I think the university very much should look into that part.

Jay:

Despite our long history of relationship with international students, we haven’t particularly done the best job of supporting them during COVID-19.

Lucy:

And this is partly because of how they have been painted. As part of Dr Lehmann’s current research project, she has been conducting interviews with international students about their experiences during COVID-19.

Angela Lehmann:

One of the issues that has come out of those interviews for me is how much students value and want to be part of Australian communities. I think this is a really big part of what international students want. Sure, they want their piece of paper and they want to graduate. But actually, it's become really clear that that's only a part of what they want. What they want is a proper intercultural experience. And a lot of our international students here really do work hard at that. Volunteering, I've spoken to so many students who have really volunteered a lot and really kind of tried to connect into communities with varying degrees of success.

There is a big role that they want to play and that they can play in our communities, whether they're as volunteers, as colleagues, as playing on a sports team or something. And all of these things help us as people to understand each other. And so, I think from my interviews, that kind of community participation expectation of students is something that's disappeared during COVID for them because they feel a lot of those opportunities are not there now.

Jay:

This is also a narrative we don’t hear often - that international students want to be a part of our communities.

Lucy:

It’s easy to see them as here to get their education and go, but that’s definitely not the full picture.

Frankly, the nickname ‘cash cows’ given to international students makes me quite uncomfortable, its overuse in the media sends a clear message to the Australian public that they exist for the sole purpose of funding.

I asked Yidi what she thought of the ‘cash cow’ nickname and whether she thought her international student experience was immersive for her.

Yidi Yan:

I think even though international students are always seen as cash cow, because we pay a lot of money, I think if we can get a good education, a good experience and secure a job after graduation, it's still worth the price. The matter is if it's worth the price.

Lucy Xu:

And do you think from your three years of studying here, so how has your experience been? Do you think it's worth the price?

Yidi Yan:

So my first goal was to study social science and math with statistics here. So, that meets my expectation. I did it. But the teaching quality isn't that good for some subjects. So I wouldn't say that the learning experience was very good.

Lucy Xu:

What about some positive experience that you've had?

Yidi Yan:

I got a lot of opportunities to exchange abroad. For example, I went to Scotland.

Lucy Xu:

What about in Australia?

Yidi Yan:

In Australia, so most of my friends are still Chinese international students. So I haven't really got immersed into the Australian society or Australian culture, so that's a big pity.

Lucy:

Benny on the other hand, had a more positive and immersive experience in Australia.

Benny:

I think because living in my student accommodations, I actually meet a lot of people, especially we have a lot of exchange students and international students in the accommodations. We have 800 people and pretty much also because of university, I joined lots of clubs and societies, like language exchange. I meet a lot of domestic students as well. I think my experience is actually quite diverse in the university community.

Lucy Xu:

If you could name one highlight of your three years have you spent here in higher education what would it be?

Benny:

I think talking about highlights, I will say I got the election. I won the student union election. So as an international student it's very hard to get into those elections, but I actually made it and also made the first highest ticket as international students. Because there are stereotypes, sometimes talking about international students can be a little bit boring, they only hangout always in their own communities, they're not willing to talk to people a lot, engage on campus life and stuff like that. So I very much want to change their prejudice talking to people and saying, "Yeah, we can be different as well."

Angela Lehmann:

These are a really young cohort of people that we're attracting into our country intentionally and strategically. And I think maybe we could have a little bit of a think as a nation in some way about our duty of care, I suppose.

Julia Horne:

I mean, one thing we get out of it is that something like one in five will actually stay here, and imagine that. They might have paid for their university education, nonetheless, we've invested that in them and they stay, and willing to contribute to a nation.

So if we can't see the good that comes out of that, the public good, the social good, well, it's there is all I'd say, and it's something which would be good to recognize. I think it's cultivated anyway, but to change the conversation from fees to that point, which we do pretty well. It's not perfect, I accept that, but we've had a long history of doing it, and it would be good to recapture phrases like the public good and good will, I think.

Lucy:

It’s so important to acknowledge their contribution that international students bring to the Australian society outside of lecture rooms. There is so much we can learn from one another when diversity is added both to the classroom and integrated within society.

Jay:

We have so far talked about the history of international education, the current policies toward international students amid COVID-19. Now, it’s time to discuss the difficult one - the future.

Lucy:

What would happen to the education industry in Australia if our international students don’t return?

Lucy Xu:

You mentioned in your article on the policy forum that international students play a key role in the interaction between education, tourism, and labor markets. So, as many students are incentivized to come by the Post Study Work Visa. So, how do you think the current policies towards international students during COVID will impact this ecosystem post-pandemic?

Angela Lehmann:

So, Chinese international students are very much integrated with our tourism sector and the growth of our tourism sector in Australia.

So, we know that Chinese visitors, so short-term visitors, these are people that come into our country for less than one year, these are our biggest group of short-term visitors. They've overtaken New Zealand a few years ago. So, they're a really popular group of short-term visitors.

So, 16% of these Chinese short-term visitors say they're here for education related purposes. So, this means that they might be doing like an English course or something during that one year that they're here. They make up 16% education related tourists from China. However, they spend 65% of the total amount of money of Chinese visitors. So, they really spend a lot. And the reason is because of education. If you're an education tourist, you often stay for longer. You stay for more nights, you spend more money. So, integrating that education element within tourism is beneficial for the tourism sector and for the education sector.

Jay:

That’s right, 65% of Chinese tourism money comes from education related tourists, so it’s not just the fees that are paid, but it’s the tourism that comes with it.

Lucy:

And that’s a big chunk of money to lose beyond just the fees, and that’s a lot of Chinese people that won’t get to see what life is like here in Australia.

Julia Horne:

You know big tourist crowds, they might never come here again, so it's fickle. I don't think international students, however, is a fickle group.

So I think that once borders reopen and that little pesky coronavirus, which is causing so much terrible damage around the world is contained that I think it's reasonable to see that international students aren't going to be turned off from coming to Australia. How that's handled may change in terms of fees, in terms of many things, but I find it difficult to see that international students are like crops or barley or something, or even tourists, that they can just move somewhere else, when often people are coming here for ... they have relationships here already, or they know someone who's in Sydney or Melbourne, and so there's a connection there.

So in that sense, to tie the two together, if we see that in a couple of years time, international students will be able to return and they do, in a funny sort of way, the tourism might return also as other tourist markets fall away.

Lucy:

Let’s also keep in mind that Australia is not the only international education market out there, it is a competitive industry; we still have Canada, the US, the UK, or perhaps other emerging destination countries.

Angela Lehmann:

Yeah, so this has been a really interesting time to be watching international higher education policy. As countries around the world, we're in this intensely competitive global marketplace for international higher education. Speaking of power division and race as well, you know? When you look at ... I'm going off on a tangent, sorry. But when you look at this sector, we're still dealing with the UK, Canada, America, Australia. It's a really anglophile market, which to that, I say, "Let's watch this space," because I think we might start seeing some changes in that, in coming years as well. But anyway, if you look at England, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, all of these governments have been in the last four months or five months making these policy changes to help to protect and to signify to their international student community that they are open and ready for business. And this is to protect their own sector so that when gates open again, the students will make those decisions to go to that country.

And I think we're actually standing pretty steady, particularly after the visa changes. I think if you'd asked me this two weeks ago, I'd probably say we might need to up our game a bit. But I think actually we're doing pretty well.

Lucy:

We have learnt that Australia’s international student landscape has grown up with the restructuring of our higher education itself. The beginning of this relationship was indeed fostered by a shared interest for social and cultural exchange.

Jay:

It wasn’t until the 1990s, against the backdrop of global commercialisation of tertiary education as an export industry, that Australian universities started charging international student fees to cover the government’s defunding in research, leading to today’s international students painted in a pure financial sense.

Lucy:

As we heard today, they contribute significantly to our society, both culturally and economically. The government’s response to support international students during COVID-19 has been hugely disappointing

I like how Professor Horne uses ‘goodwill’ to describe the relationship between international students and Australia. It’s one I haven't heard in a while.

Lucy Xu:

In today's market economy where so much more emphasis is put on money and business, do you think there is still space to reestablish this goodwill?

Julia Horne:

So I don't think it's gone away, I just think it's just been hidden. So whereas in the fifties and sixties, it was much more explicit, it's not explicit anymore. So I would argue that it's there and the term should be used, and we should be using them feeling ... I hate the word proud, but feeling we have a long history here and these are our neighbors and these are terms that describe the relationship.

I think that in Australia if we just resurrect those terms, we can start seeing in fact the actual experience of international students here.

So I don't think it's disappeared, I think there's still a sense in which the cultural and social relations, which are at the foundation of goodwill, are there, but let's just start to focus on what that means, and expose it for the good that it is, rather than see people just simply as purses or wallets or whatever.

Lucy:

I asked Yidi and Benny what kind of support they would like to see from the government and universities.

Yidi Yan:

For the government side, I don't know if it's possible. But I wish that my student visa could be extended. And the 40 hour fortnightly work limit could be waived. So, if someone got a job, the student could do it full time.

Jay:

We spoke to Yidi back in August, and as of early October, the government has announced that student visa holders could work more than 40 hrs a fortnight for certain health, aged care and disability care workers, but for those working for, say supermarkets, they’re still bound by the 40 hour limit per fortnight.

Yidi Yan:

From the university side, I hope the university could give students a tuition fee rebate, like a discount or to say scholarship sounds better. And also I heard some American universities has collaborated with some top universities in China so that their students can enroll in some Chinese universities as exchange students.

Benny:

I think the most important things that the government and the university should try working really hard to bring international students back to actually help them to still get the same experience they sure deserve for the degree. Yeah. And I also noticed some universities have also created China study centers, so you can still have a campus experience in China, even though you're not able to come into Australia.

Lucy Xu:

Do you have any personal advice to international students to navigate through this situation at the moment?

Julia Horne:

Perhaps I'll just be the historian here, and I'll answer it as a historian, and that is I think, perhaps take some heart that in Australia, despite what you're hearing from different forms of government or the media. International education, the education of overseas students from Asia, has actually been something that universities have seen as truly important, socially and culturally, for a long, long, long, long time, and I think they still see that.

It might feel as though they've suddenly become just this financial transaction, but I actually believe that's not the case in universities, that they do see international students as a really important part of their bigger educational fabric. So perhaps take heart from that long history.

Lucy:

I asked the same questions to Dr Lehmann.

Angela Lehmann:

I think one piece of advice is to don't be down on Australia. I think Australia and Australians by in large want you here and see the value that you bring to our country on many levels. I don't mean your money, I mean your culture and your ideas and your background and your experience. You're very much wanted here. I hope that some of the things that have happened in the last five months don't cause fear for you to Australians. Don’t hate us all, you’re very much part of our communities. I would probably give some advice to keep interacting, keep participating in the things that you can.

CREDITS

Lucy

This episode of Shoes Off was written and produced by me, Lucy Xu!

Jay

With help from me Jay Ooi, and editing and mixing done by myself.

Lucy

Special thanks to all our guests in this episode - Dr Angela Lehmann, Associate Professor Julia Horne, Yidi Yan and Benny Shen.

Jay

And thanks to Avik Chari for the music and Alli Chang for the episode artwork. And special thanks to you Lucy for putting this episode together!

Lucy

I’d love to hear more about your experiences this year as an international student, so please leave a comment on the facebook or instagram page @shoesoffau.

Jay

And if you liked Shoes Off, please follow or subscribe, we’re on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you get yours. Lucy, where can people find you?

Lucy

You can find me on instagram @lucyxucy. And if you have any international student friends who would relate to this episode, please share this with them.

Jay

Amazing, and thanks again for putting this episode together!

Lucy

You’re welcome!

Jay

And thank YOU for listening. Catch you next episode!

Lucy

Byeeeee!

Jay

Byeeee