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Universities hatch desperate plan to fly students in, quarantine them
By Farrah Tomazin, Royce Millar and Adam Carey
Victorian universities are so desperate to get international students back into the state this year that they have proposed to help pay for a quarantine scheme modelled on the Australian Open program, where tennis players were allowed into the country despite a strict cap on arrivals.
Under the university-backed proposal, about 1000 foreign students would be flown into Melbourne every two to three weeks and placed into special hotel lockdown arrangements in an ambitious bid to revive international education in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Universities are desperate for international students to return.Credit: Wayne Taylor
The push comes as universities – which are facing their biggest crisis in decades – grow increasingly frustrated with the federal and state government over the tens of thousands of students enrolled in Victorian institutions who remain stuck offshore.
NSW is pressing ahead, with the government last week calling for expressions of interest from student accommodation providers to enable the return of up to 10,000 students this year.
An international education taskforce that includes Melbourne, Monash, RMIT and Deakin universities and state government agency Global Victoria have held a series of meetings to discuss how to bring stranded international students back into Victoria, but the state government is yet to approve the plan.
The government refused to comment on the issue, except to say they will not bring students back “until it is safe to do so”.
The Victorian universities propose flying students on chartered flights from China and India to Melbourne and quarantining them, potentially, in the same Melbourne city hotels used by Australian Open players in January.
Universities have offered to help pay for flights, medical testing, transport, and quarantine facilities. Students and the state government would also make contributions to the scheme. Once medically cleared, students would then be integrated back into their respective institutions.
The first stage of the scheme would be limited to hotels run by government agency COVID-19 Quarantine Victoria, but it is hoped it would later be expanded to include purpose-built student accommodation, much of which is currently sitting empty.
A number of flight options have also been canvassed by universities including direct commercial trips between China, India and Melbourne; charter flights from a hub in either Singapore or Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia; or charter flights from Shanghai and Mumbai to Melbourne. The plan would not seek to reduce the number of Australians allowed back.
Premier Daniel Andrews.Credit: Paul Jeffers
Before students can arrive in Victoria, the Andrews government must put forward a plan to the Morrison government for approval.
Premier Daniel Andrews has previously talked down expectations of students returning this year, but federal Education Minister Alan Tudge has offered the states the option of bringing students back in small pilot programs.
About 260,000 international students have been stranded offshore since the pandemic. As The Age revealed this week, the loss of foreign students to Australia’s strict border closures is likely to punch an $18 billion hole in the economy, including $6 billion from Victoria, where international education is the state’s single biggest export commodity.
In Victoria, multiple plans proposed over months have got little traction.
Scape student accommodation in Melbourne CBD.Credit: Tash Sorensen
An RMIT spokeswoman said the university was working with the Victorian government, City of Melbourne and other universities “on a statewide approach that will allow international students to enter Victoria”.
A University of Melbourne spokesman said the university “has been working closely with other universities and the state government for the past 12 months to facilitate the return of international students to Victoria”.
The City of Melbourne has proposed its own plan including charter flights for students. And in a separate detailed plan to both state and federal governments, the purpose-built student accommodation industry last year proposed a quarantine system based in what are now largely vacant student apartment blocks across major cities.
Acting Premier James Merlino recently insisted the main problem for the sector was winning federal approval for students and other “economic cohorts” to fly into Victoria in addition to returning Australians.
“If you don’t get that from the federal government then it doesn’t matter what other ideas, whether it’s the City of Melbourne, SA, NSW or ourselves, doesn’t matter what idea you have to deliver it, if you can’t get people [students] on the flights, it’s a no-goer,” he said last week.
Craig Carracher, the co-founder and chairman of student housing developer, Scape, said international students could be brought back safely, but “the problem is a lack of political will at both levels” of government.
Mr Carracher said the Morrison government appeared to have an eye to the next election while the Andrews government appeared to be on a permanent election footing.
“The two leaders [Scott Morrison and Daniel Andrews] often don’t appear to have much in common but on this matter they are in agreement,” Mr Carracher said.