International education needs more support

International students in Adelaide in 2019.

As the prospect of the large scale return of international students to Australia next year recedes, the question needs to be asked: where is the political leader who is willing right now to go into bat for an export industry which earned $40bn last year and employed an estimated 250,000 Australians?

At the moment there’s a minimal level of political interest in finding a safe way for international students to come back to Australia in the foreseeable future.

The “secure corridor” scheme, which would have tried out the return of international students at a small scale — road testing procedures for COVID testing and effective quarantine — is dormant and shows no sign of coming back to life soon.

Our political leaders are also well aware of the rising suspicion of China, and all things Chinese, which is rapidly growing among Australians. And, being leaders, they do of course follow. They sense danger right now in advocating too strongly for international students.

But they need to stand back and consider the bigger picture. JobKeeper will end next March. Australia needs to quickly rebuild its decimated industries. And there is significant pent up demand from international students to come back to Australia.

This figure has not previously been made public, but I am reliably told the number of Chinese students who are enrolled to commence Australian university courses in second semester this year is over 70 per cent of the number which commenced courses in second semester last year. Except this year these students will be studying online from China.

That’s a high number considering that the online learning experience is not great. But they are willing to pay high fees to do it in the expectation that they will be able to come to Australia at some yet to be determined date.

In other words, when our borders do open they will be eager to come. Interestingly, the official anti-Australian rhetoric out of Beijing is not putting them off.

We should also remember that, when here, they spend most of their money not on university fees, but in the general economy.

It makes sense to allow them to come to our country as soon as they safely can. And, aside from the economic imperative, shouldn’t we be doing all we can to build links with ordinary Chinese people? That, in itself, would be a very good investment.