POLICY & ADVOCACY INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS
Fair weather friends? International students in Australia during the COVID-19 crisis
Even before COVID-19 came to our shores, there had been a great deal of discussion regarding Australia’s international student sector. The sector has seen rapid growth in the last decade – in 2001 international students comprised around 18% of total student enrolments, by 2018, they comprised over 30%. This growth accelerated in the last few years – to 10.2% in 2017 and 11.2% in 2018. Given this growth – and the fact that in 2018, 26.3% of all university income was from international students – it’s not surprising that many were questioning the wisdom of the sector’s increasing reliance on
international education. While many concerns (including those expressed by the NTEU) focused on international students being exploited for financial gain, and the fact that international fee income was largely plugging the gap in the proportional decrease in Commonwealth Grant Scheme funding, the Government chose to frame its discussions around ‘foreign interference’ with a particular focus on allegations around the Chinese Government’s activities in research, academic freedom, and student life. next page ➜
Terri MacDonald Acting Director (Policy & Research)
vol. 1 no. 1
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nteu.org.au/sentry
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