Coronavirus Australia: A new dawn for students, footy fans — and it feels good

Hundreds of international ­students will arrive on charter flights within weeks as embattled unis race to revive teetering ­finances.

Scott Morrison in Canberra on Friday. Picture: AAP

Hundreds of international ­students will arrive in the country on charter flights within weeks as the nation’s embattled universities race to revive their teetering ­finances.

COVID-19 restrictions and the closure of borders has brought the lucrative international student market to a halt and left Australia’s higher education sector facing an $18bn budget hole over the next four years. The University of Melbourne was the latest to warn hundreds of jobs could be axed.

The bid by universities to revive their international student operations came as Scott Morrison announced moves to get spectators back into sporting venues and state borders reopened.

South Australia announced it would reopen its borders on July 20 and Queensland is expected to remove bans on entry on July 10.

Sporting grounds that can seat up to 40,000 spectators will be ­allowed to be one-quarter full from July but larger venues will have to apply for special exemptions to seat crowds.

In a significant easing of coronavirus pandemic restrictions, more than 100 people will be ­allowed to attend weddings and funerals from July. “It’s important to note that there being cases and there being the odd outbreak here or there is something that is anticipated and the system has been built to deal with,” the Prime Minister said. “But the emergence of cases is not something that will necessarily require the three-step process and the opening up of the economy to be halted.”

Western Australia, which has refused to open its borders, may be left out of the international student scheme. “If you can’t come to your state from Sydney, then no one is coming to your state from Singapore,” Mr Morrison said on Friday.

The Australian National University and the University of Canberra are expected to be the first to have international students back in lecture halls, with the first charter flight under a pilot scheme scheduled for next month ahead of the resumption of teaching in late July.

Universities in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane are also negotiating for the return of ­international students, with Mr Morrison warning any resumption would be “in a very controlled setting”.

“We’ve received some very, I think, well thought-through proposals from states as to how this can be done,” the Prime Minister said on Friday after a meeting of the national cabinet.

The cost of charter flights to bring international students to Australia would be split between the universities and the states and territories. Students would be required to quarantine for a fortnight, sources involved in the discussions said.

The selection criteria would favour final-year students who wanted to complete their courses, they said.

A report released by the University of Melbourne’s Centre for the Study of Higher Education in late May warned that the sharp ­decrease in international student revenues linked to the pandemic would lead to “more profound” changes than anything experienced in three decades.

“Few if any universities have sufficient operating margins or available cash and investment reserves to withstand a sustained reduction in international fee revenue,” the research reads.

“The nature of any ‘right-sizing’ would be of a dimension no university leader would have experienced previously … for some universities the scale of adjustment is likely to challenge long-term viability at least in terms of their current configuration.”

The study identified Monash, RMIT, UTS, La Trobe, CQUniversity, Southern Cross and Canberra as the most financially at-risk universities of the country’s 38 largest higher education institutions.

The report predicted that, “within a finite funding pool, universities with greater brand power might seek to cannibalise the market for other institutions, thereby risking a further destabilisation”.

The federal government has been reluctant to provide additional funding to the sector.

Education Minister Dan Tehan said universities needed to shift their business models. “Like any business, however, it is prudent to manage risk through diversification,” he said. “Diversification is not just about attracting students from a range of countries … it also means delivering education in new ways and exploring new models of offshore delivery.”

Universities will need approval from federal and state authorities, including the Australian Border Force, before being allowed to fly in international students.

ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr said he was confident a pilot program for Canberra’s two universities would be in place next month.

Universities Australia chief executive Catriona Jackson said the organisation had been in negotiations with the federal government about a pilot program “for some time”.

“International students understand that they have to play their part, by obeying the rules on health and hygiene practices,” she said. “They are a good bet as COVID-safe citizens.”

Additional reporting: Richard Ferguson