Victoria to set up campuses overseas in move to circumvent student caps

Delhi: Victoria will provide cash incentives to universities and TAFEs to set up campuses and educate students overseas in a bid to circumvent Australia’s cap on international students.

Premier Jacinta Allan announced the $5 million fund for offshore education while in Delhi, where she is spruiking a “refresh” of the Victorian government’s India strategy, particularly in education, culture and technology.

Premier Jacinta Allan is shown around Delhi’s historic Qutb precinct by Dr Navina Jafa on Monday.Credit: Kieran Rooney

The Age is shadowing the premier this week as she meets with Indian and Australian delegates and visits holy sites.

On Monday, Allan delivered the annual speech for the Australian India Institute to a room packed full of Indian business leaders, media and government officials.

“Today, Victoria’s trade relationship with India is worth $3.6 billion – it’s a big and important part of our economy – but it’s built still on that wonderful foundation of being home to the largest number of Indian-born Australians in the country,” she said.

“We have a great many Indian businesses in the technology sector, and that will also be a focus of our discussions over the course of the week.”

The premier’s offshore education fund will be for transnational education – which is the provision of Australian courses to international students in other countries – including through overseas campuses or dual courses partnered with international universities.

RMIT University will expand its agreement with Indian university BITS Pilani after they created the first Australia-India dual degree, where students split half their study in each country.

The move could provide Victoria with a pathway to grow or maintain the economic benefit of international students, who generated $14.8 billion in revenue for the state last year.

As another example, Holmesglen Institute operates a TAFE campus in Mongolia and in 2015 opened a specialist secondary school in Qatar.

“We say yes to international students because they boost our economy and our global reputation, they support our small businesses, and they keep our multicultural state connected with the world,” Allan said.

“We say no to the federal government’s caps. Our new fund is going to help our unis and TAFEs find innovative ways to challenge them, and make our offering to international students even stronger.”

Victoria is one of the states most heavily affected by the caps because the state accounts for 30 per cent of Australia’s international student enrolment.

Allan speaks with Delhi boy Sunny Sharma, who wants to improve his English.Credit: Kieran Rooney

Earlier on Monday, Allan visited the site of the Qutb Minar and Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque, a 13th-century precinct in the heart of Delhi notable for monuments and ruins of India’s Islamic and Hindu history.

Allan was escorted around the Qutb complex by Dr Navina Jafa, a well-known cultural heritage expert and Indian classical dancer.

The precinct represents the history of migration of Islamic people into South Asia, with the 72.5 metre minaret and the mosque built as landmarks for those communities on top of what was once the region’s oldest fortified city, Lal Kot.

While in India, Allan will visit multiple monuments and holy sites that are significant to India’s diverse mix of religions.

On Monday, she was approached by Sunny Sharma, a young Delhi boy who wanted to speak to her to improve his English skills.

The premier said his English skills were “already very good” and encouraged Sunny to visit Melbourne, describing it as right at the bottom of the world map.

On Sunday, on the first day of the trip, Allan met with Australian High Commissioner Phillip Green and raised the topic of extraditing Puneet Puneet – the hit-run driver who killed university student Dean Hofstee in Melbourne in 2008 – who remains in India, using legal channels to avoid being sent to Australia for sentencing.

“I understand that already there has been strong co-operation between Indian and Australian officials around the potential for an extradition that’s supported by policing authorities,” Allan said.

“The high commissioner has committed that those efforts will be redoubled because there is a there is a view that this individual, this coward, should be extradited to face justice.”

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