Call to tackle foreign student drop

VICTORIAN universities have stepped up pressure on the federal government to fix Australia's student visa system as international student numbers continue to fall.

Melbourne University vice-chancellor Glyn Davis yesterday used a press conference with the Prime Minister to call for reform, warning the quality of university education was on the line. ''We are the only country in the world that's having this sharp fall, which tells you that whatever the factors are that are driving it they're about what we do in Australia,'' he said.

In Victoria the international student market is worth $4.5 billion, and is the state's single largest export. Australia-wide the sector is valued at $17 billion, and is the country's third-largest export.

Advertisement: Story continues below ''The implications of tightening up visas, and in particular the requiring of significant money in the bank in advance to guarantee that you can pay your bills, means that we are not competitive with the United Kingdom or with the United States as destinations,'' Professor Davis said.

He also said that a spate of racist attacks on Indian students in Victoria had trashed Australia's reputation ''almost overnight'' and caused the number of students coming from India to drop by up to 95 per cent.

''Clearly the perceived violence and actual violence in this city against Indian students in 2009 did us enormous damage as a nation in India,'' he said. ''There are a number of institutions in Victoria that have heavily drawn on Indian students and they are feeling the effect dramatically. The fall is predicted to be somewhere between 80 and 95 per cent [in 2011].''

But he said the biggest problem was the government's visa changes.

A 300-strong round of voluntary redundancies was announced at Monash University on Wednesday as part of a $45 million budget cut, because of an expected 10 per cent drop in international student revenue in 2011.

Professor Davis said jobs would be lost across Australia if the government did not act. ''Everyone in this city, in every other city, who runs accommodation, who runs a restaurant, who sells books, is involved. So there are families far removed from the university sector who will find themselves losing out,'' he said.

He said the federal government might need to provide additional funding to universities to make up the shortfall.

Monash University vice-chancellor Ed Byrne defended the decision to cut staff and said teaching quality would not be affected.

He backed the call for visa reform, saying the biggest international student market, China, was deterred by the large sums of money needed to gain access to a temporary visa. ''In mainland China the issues are purely financial. [They are] the historically high dollar and the major financial impost around getting a temporary student visa approved,'' he said.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the government's visa changes were aimed at the migration scheme, not at having a differential impact on the education sector. ''Visa changes were changes to our permanent migration arrangements, which we did because we want who we select to come in the permanent migration scheme and the size of that scheme to be about immigration,'' she said.

Source:http://www.theage.com.au/national/education/call-to-tackle-foreign-student-drop-20101014-16lso.html