It is essentially a myth that international education is an export industry, notwithstanding its classification by the Australian Bureau of Statistics as such. Indeed, O’Neil has proudly declared “international education is our fourth largest export” and needs to be protected.

Exports are defined as goods and services produced in one country and sold to buyers in another.

With international education, the expectation was that students would convert their foreign currency to pay the fees and living expenses while studying here.

The reality is very different. While some initial fees may be paid from abroad, most international students work while studying to cover their living expenses and further fees.

This is not an export activity. We don’t count the entry of temporary workers as an export.
...

“That is, someone borrowed money five years ago, put it in a bank account to show they can pay the tuition, pay the tuition out of the bank account, but their work earnings are paying that loan off”, Babones said.

The practice was “absolutely routine” in India and Nepal for students to “game the financial requirements” by getting loans from family or even loan sharks years in advance to secure a visa, according to Prof Babones.

“Those funds are never coming to Australia,” he said.

Salvatore Babones noted similar in his recent book, “Australia’s universities, can they reform”:

“In reality, everyone (except perhaps the government and the universities) knew that many international students pay for their courses out of the proceeds of their work in-country, often working excessive hours under exploitative conditions, in violation of their visa terms”.

“This situation is especially common among South Asian students, and is reflected in the steep fall-off in South Asian student numbers when teaching moved online”.

“With prospective students unable to rely on employment income in Australia to support their studies, new commencements of Indian students at Australian higher education providers fell 65% between 2019 and 2021; for Nepali students, the decline was 37%; for Pakistanis, 45%; for Sri Lankans, 54%”.

“These countries are simply too poor to send large cohorts of international students to Australian universities based on family resources alone”.

“For many South Asian students, a student visa is a very expensive but thinly disguised work visa”.
https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2024/05/the-mask-comes-off-international-studen...

The universities present a formidable lobby in Canberra, however, and have vociferously fought other attempts at regulation, including on questions of tertiary education standards and even the safety of their students on campus.

They have adopted a Wall Street-style approach to their missions, paying exorbitant salaries to their leaders and gunning for eye-watering surpluses. They are interested principally in the protection of their global rankings, to which they tie their prospects of attracting future fee-payers.

The problem is only becoming more urgent. The recent explosion of artificial intelligence raises the stakes even further. A researcher at University College London recently found more than 1 per cent of all scientific articles published last year, some 60,000 papers, were likely written by a computer.

In some sectors, it's worse. Almost one out of every five computer science papers published in the past four years may not have been written by humans.
https://amp.abc.net.au/article/103868662

Frank wrote on Dec 23^rd, 2023 at 10:25am:


Africa has about 1.4 billion people on the continent ranging from all ethnicities. Australia has about 2 million millionaires out of the 26 million people here -- 11% of the adult population. Even if 0.1% of Africans are millionaires, they can afford to send 1.4 million students overseas. Australia is one place that is crying out for university students. Trust me, I know. I went to university in 1997, and the place was crowded with students. I am doing a university course now, and every time I go out there for a practical class or even for those student get together, there are about 1/4 of the number of students I see now compared to 1997.

Last time I looked at an Atlas, Egypt was in Africa, just as South Africa was.  Many Indians live in Africa as do many Chinese.  Guess what they all call themselves?  African.  Funny that, hey.  Your Racism is showing quite brightly there.  Tsk, tsk, tsk... 

Brian Ross wrote on Jun 1^st, 2024 at 10:08pm:

You are an ignorant idiot of rare occurrence.

Ghandi lived in Africa for 2 decades. He was never an African.


You multiculti morons hide behind your total ignorance of all cultures, including your own. Your ignorant stupidity is your unbreakable shield.

North Africans look more like Middle Eastern people than Caucasian.

JC Denton wrote on Jun 1^st, 2024 at 10:49pm:


Basically the same meaning.