International students focus of education probe

A fresh parliamentary inquiry will probe the treatment of international students.

Education Minister Jason Clare. Picture: David Foote

A fresh parliamentary inquiry will probe the treatment of international students, as federal Education Minister Jason Clare opened the door to new rules forcing universities to reveal how much tuition is on-campus and how much is online.

The Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade on Thursday launched the inquiry into Australia’s education and tourism sectors, with a focus on how to “restore” the reputation of higher education. Committee chair Deborah O’Neill said the inquiry would cover all arms of international education, and investigate the sector’s recovery post-Covid-19.

“We’ll look at international education in terms of the ongoing engagement with a workforce overseas … and how that intersects with our visa structures,” she told The Australian.

“There’s also issues of the quality of that education. We have a massive export capacity for high-quality education and that needs to be restored.”

Senator O’Neill said the role of digital learning would be considered, and she hoped the committee would hear directly from “international partners” to get the best picture of how to improve the sector.

Mr Clare will reveal in a speech to the Australian International Education Conference on Friday the backlog of students waiting overseas for a visa had dropped from 130,000 to just over 40,000. “In other words, we have cut the waiting list by two-thirds,” he said in an advance copy of his speech.

Mr Clare said it was important universities “diversify” what they offered, which included the way courses were delivered.

But opposition education spokesman Alan Tudge raised concerns over universities not being transparent about how much of a course would be taught in person and online.

In letters to Mr Clare and Universities Australia seen by The Australian, Mr Tudge argued for changes to guidelines to force universities to publish detailed breakdowns of their courses.

“Universities are currently required to publish the modes of delivery for their courses, but there is no requirement for them to break down the hours delivered via each mode,” he said in the letters. “In the interests of all students, I would like to propose a change to the Higher Education Provider Guidelines, to require universities to publish a breakdown of each mode of delivery, to make clear the number of face-to-face hours a student can expect to receive for each course.”