‘Debate stifled by Chinese university students’

Report warns an overwhelming number of Chinese students in our unis risks academic integrity.

Group of Eight chief executive Vicki Thomson defended academic and language standards in higher education. Picture: Nikki Short

The overwhelming number of Chinese students in many Australian university classrooms has ­stymied free debate and made it difficult to encourage academic integrity, according to a new ­report prepared for the Business Council and Asia Society.

The paper, authored by the University of Sydney Business School’s international academic director John Shields, calls for higher entry standards for international students — including in the minimum level of English-language proficiency.

“Far from serving to diversity the student cohort, the dependence on Chinese students has ­instituted a form of classroom monoculturalism in which ­encouraging students to embrace the values of academic integrity and free debate, and facilitating the development of core capabilities in critical thinking, effective English communication and cross-cultural competence, have become increasingly difficult,” Professor Shields writes.

But Group of Eight chief executive Vicki Thomson defended academic and language standards and said if the sector was seen as low quality, “inter­national students would have stopped coming here a long time ago”.

“They did not,” she said. “The majority of those students return to strong positions on the career ladder … they would not be able to do that without comprehending their degrees.”

The paper is part of a work conducted by the BCA and Asia Society Australia along with PwC and the University of Sydney.

In the paper, Professor Shields writes: “There is some truth to claim that admission standards for students from China are too soft and lax, and that the learning outcomes and job-readiness of a significant number of our Chinese graduates are substandard.”

The report recommends that universities “tighten academic and English-language standards for Chinese students”, requiring higher scores in the Chinese end-of-school exam, the Gao Kao, and put more emphasis on the International Baccalaureate as an entry examination.

But Professor Shields writes that these criticisms should not mean universities “abandon our educational engagement with China; nor that students from China are somehow less worthy academically than those from other backgrounds”.

“What it does suggest is that the sector — and particularly the Group of Eight — has a pressing need to revise and revitalise this engagement,” the report reads.

“(Overseas students) widen our cultural horizons and our culinary tastes, affirm the values of multiculturalism and enrich campus life.

“Nor should we forget the cultural benefits to domestic students of the international student presence, particularly given that Asia has been, and will continue to be, a major work destination for many local graduates.”

Phil Honeywood, the chief executive of International Education Australia, also defended current university standards.

“A great deal of effort has gone into lifting our English-language entry standards and academic ­integrity, and the integrity of our teaching must continually be monitored,” Mr Honeywood said.

In the report, Professor Shields says Australian universities need to adapt to the transformation under way in China’s higher education sector where the number, and quality, of universities is growing rapidly. The number of Chinese students coming to Australia was already softening before the pandemic, he writes. Universities should cease seeing China “primarily as an inexhaustible source of students” and look to the best Chinese universities as “peers and competitors in the international education market” and prospective research collaborators, Professor Shields wrote.