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Indian
student attacks: Australia dangerously close to attracting sanctions
Melbourne:
Australia is dangerously close to risking sanctions that can cause a collapse
in the overseas student market after authorities ignored protests from foreign
diplomats about the safety of their nationals, an expert has warned. Monash University
Professor Chris Nyland said yesterday foreign governments were actively intervening
to protect their students here. Professor Nyland, who has been researching a book
on international student security with the University of Melbourne's Simon Marginson
for the past five years, was quoted by The Australian as saying that Australia
needed to respond to the crisis with more than spin if it wished to avoid further
suffering to students and a collapse within its 15.5 billion dollars overseas
student industry. Daryl Le Grew, Universities Australia's spokesman on international
affairs, agreed, telling the HES yesterday the furore was a "wake-up call" for
universities. "We need to respond with more than spin. We need to acknowledge
there's a problem," Professor Le Grew said. "We need to do much more to support
and care for students, and if we can't do that it (the market) will dissolve."
Professor Nyland said Australia faced potentially crippling sanctions from the
Chinese and Indian governments over student safety. The crisis comes as Australian
authorities face a political vacuum in liaising with overseas students since the
sector lost confidence in the peak National Liaison Committee, which had been
championing the student safety issue. In the highly leveraged and concentrated
$15.5 billion Australian overseas student market, about 42per cent of the country's
414,446 overseas students as of March were from China and India. Widespread media
coverage of the attacks in India - where one Hindi paper falsely reported 20 students
had been killed - has prompted a flurry of diplomatic activity by Australian political
leaders and vice-chancellors. Kevin Rudd spoke to his Indian counterpart Manmohan
Singh last Friday, reassuring him that discrimination and victimisation of overseas
students would not be tolerated. Federal Education Minister Julia Gillard also
announced a round table on overseas student welfare aimed at deciding what more
needs to be done "to promote and protect" Australia's reputation as a safe destination
for quality teaching and research. Professor Le Grew said deputy vice-chancellors
international would meet core ambassadors in Canberra tomorrow after academics
met to discuss student safety. A new survey carried out at nine universities as
part of the Nyland-Marginson book project backed official data that showed more
than 80 per cent of overseas students were happy with their experience in Australia.
