The time to welcome back international students is nigh

Nev Power, head of the National COVID-19 Coordination Commission, has lifted hopes that international students will return to Australia next year.

Australia’s international tertiary education industry has seen a glimmer of hope. After three months of being powerless in the midst of a rolling, relentless disaster, plans are being made to pick up the pieces of this $40bn export industry and reassemble them as best as can be done.

The headline breakthrough was comments made by Nev Power, Scott Morrison’s recovery tsar, last week when he said universities had the opportunity to work with government to map out a plan to resume the entry of international students to Australia.

“We’ll need to put quarantine provisions in. We’ll need to make sure that unis are reconfigured to incorporate safe practices. But that way we can accelerate that because right now, this academic year, you could have them back,” Mr Power, the former chief executive of Fortescue Metals, told The Australian Financial Review.

Importantly, Mr Power fully appreciated the advantage that Australia was likely to have if it were able to open its borders to international students again.

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With other major student destination countries such as the US and Britain in the grip of COVID-19, Australia — which is well on the way to recovery — could well be seen as a very desirable haven for students.

Most people in the international education industry see Mr Power’s comments as optimistic. Very few see more than a token number of students arriving this year. But they very much welcome his support, which indicates the government is on board with a plan to resume entry for international students in substantial numbers for the first semester of next year.

Of course there is also the question of whether Beijing will put barriers in the way of Chinese students coming to Australia next year. But assuming Chinese students are able to come, the challenges of admitting them, and those from other countries, are great. Quarantine arrangements will need to be made for tens of thousands — optimistically more than 100,000 — arriving students.

Governments can’t make a last-minute decision on this. Students need time to prepare. They have to select education institutions, apply for visas, take English tests and arrange housing.

If the international education business is to resume next year then it has to be announced months in advance — September would not be too soon — with ­details of the arrangements and what conditions have to be met by students, education providers and other stakeholders.

The Department of Home Affairs also has work to do. It must announce, as soon as possible, what the visa arrangements are for students who want to start their course from their home country by studying online. These students don’t want to begin a course only discover later that they can’t come to Australia to finish it. Home Affairs also needs to clarify whether such students are eligible for the standard post-study work visas if they do part of their course online from outside of Australia.

If students can get here, the ­rewards for Australia are great. Of last year’s $40bn revenue from international students, $24bn was spent outside of the education sector on things such as living costs, accommodation, entertainment and travel. And it supported 250,000 jobs.

It also make abundant sense to allow students to come before general tourists are allowed back. No tourist will want to spend two weeks in quarantine before seeing the country. But for a student spending a year or more in Australia, quarantine can be endured.

It’s tough, but if all these pieces can be made to fall into place then everyone’s potentially a winner.

This week Tim Dodd is in episode 2 of UTS historian Tamson Pietsch’s podcast on the impact of COVID-19 on universities. Titled The New Social Contract, it explores what has happened in the crisis and where it leads for universities and their role in our society. Listen in.