China students ‘key to recovery’

Australia will ‘struggle to make economic headway’ without the return of Chinese students, the peak body representing elite universities has warned.

Chinese students are yet to ­return to Australia in significant numbers because of Beijing’s zero-tolerance approach to Covid. Picture: Aaron Francis

Australia will “struggle to make economic headway” without the return of Chinese students, the peak body representing elite universities has warned.

Chinese students are yet to ­return to Australia in significant numbers because of Beijing’s zero-tolerance approach to Covid, with many of those enrolled still studying offshore and online.

Vicki Thomson, chief executive of the Group of Eight, which represents the top eight universities in the country, will tell the Australia China Business Council Industry Summit in Sydney on Friday that the Coalition was “clumsy and misguided” when it told international students to go home and urged the new government to “urgently recalibrate”.

“A problem for Australia, perhaps for years to come, is the number of international students lost to Australia along with the future student cohort courted and won so well during Covid by our competitor nations; nations such as the UK and the US, which despite being our friends are rubbing their hands in glee at Australia’s clumsy and most unfortunate treatment of any international student here when Covid struck,” she will say in a speech seen by The Australian ahead of the summit.

“Our then-government told them to leave; to go home if they could not support themselves ­financially and medically during the many and long lockdowns, ­especially in the eastern states. What a misguided message to send globally about how our ­nation viewed those supposedly valued university students.”

Ms Thomson will say the ­Coalition’s message asking students to return was “equally ­clumsy”. “The message was basically ‘come back because we need you to work in our pubs, and clubs, restaurants and shops’. Really, is that the best we can do?” she will say. “Somehow Australia, under its new government, must recalibrate urgently how it communicates these messages to international students.”

The speech comes as tensions between China and the new Labor government rise, following the interception of an Australian surveillance plane over the South China Sea. Anthony Albanese also revealed on Wednesday that the contentious 99-year lease of the Port of Darwin Port to a company with Chinese links would be reviewed.

However, Ms Thomson wants a dialling down of “macho” language. International education was worth $22.5bn to the economy in 2021, which was half of what it was in pre-Covid.

And Ms Thomson stresses that the economic impacts went well beyond the dollar figures. “Australia badly needs engineers, general practitioners, nurses, IT and cyber-security ­experts, vets, pharmacists, psychologists, optometrists,” she will say.

“In 2020 international students accounted for 61 per cent of enrolments in information technology, 43 per cent in engineering, and 30 per cent in architecture and building. We simply cannot afford to be disconnected from the global pool of talent that is ­increasingly critical to our – and our competitors’ – success. Without these students and the graduates they become our nation will struggle to make economic headway and so continue to fall behind our competitor nations.”

Ms Thomson urges the new government to “assist universities and the business sector by having the diplomatic sophistication to better manage its relationship with China despite obvious and serious issues”.

“The Go8 is not suggesting we let commitment to the rule of law slide, nor that we do not call out humanitarian practices … the Go8 asks only that both nations find ways to support us to continue to provide a quality education to students from China,” she will say.