As always, we are competing with other Western countries for the international student population. Many of our universities have made good money, and employed a LOT of people, and run courses they wouldn’t have been able to run before. This is a seriously good money spinner for the Australian economy. We create a very well educated group of people, many of whom only study here with the prospect of staying on to get skilled jobs. COVID has put a dampener on the industry worldwide but as countries get more confident about the vaccines, we are now seeing competition for students increase with some countries being prepared to throw caution to the wind and let students in without quarantining them first (or making it easier to quarantine.
But we are also seeing some rather cocky and arrogant students describing themselves as something special. as this article quotes ‘We went to Australia by choice, and now we are being forced to take our talent and skills to Canada instead’. Talent and skills? what skills? what talent? Most likely you are a graduate with an undergraduate degree. You probably have few skills and limited talent – just some academic smarts. Come back and talk to me when you have 3 years of work experience. Don’t get cocky. 🙂
But of course, we want these smart students to stay here and get jobs and keep our economy going. Australia has always needed people.
Anyway, its an interesting article and shows the difficult balancing act each country has to follow to get its education industry (and thats what it is – we dont teach for teaching sake anymore – its all about the mighty dollar) back on track.
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