Australian funding bill ‘resurrects overseas student caps’

Australia’s bill to overhaul higher education funding resurrects the international student caps that the government failed to impose two years ago, according to the opposition’s education spokesman.

Julian Leeser said the “Open the Doors of Opportunity” bill, which legislates the Australian Tertiary Education Commission’s (Atec’s) role in allocating domestic teaching grants and international student places, would put the real power in the hands of the education minister.

Leeser told a Canberra gathering that while Atec would handle international student quotas at each institution, the overall “international allocation pool” would be determined by the minister.

“[He] can pause any growth in that pool, or he can grow it,” Leeser told an International Education Association of Australia forum, according to speech notes. “He is not required to consult. He can make [or] vary the determination at any time, and the determination cannot be challenged.

“The distribution of places is then done by the Atec…but it is very much under the thumb of the minister. The international student migration scheme is now transitioning to a capped scheme.”

Clauses in the bill also empower the minister to give Atec directives about institutional quotas, Leeser said. “The minister’s power to direct Atec about how international student places are delivered, and who they go to, is essentially unfettered. The signature on the document will be…from an Atec commissioner but the direction will be from the minister.”

He said the opposition would consider a report from the Senate’s Education and Employment Committee, which is enquiring into the bill, before deciding which way to vote. The committee is due to report by 3 September.

Universities Australia (UA) called for “stronger safeguards” in the arrangements. “There is no justification for giving the minister greater scope to intervene in provider-specific international allocation decisions than applies to domestic student allocations,” it told the committee in a submission.

“The principle should be consistent: the minister sets policy, while the Atec applies that policy independently.”

UA said the arrangements should also be subject to independent statutory review – something the bill facilitated for domestic funding, but not international student allocations.

Monash University policy expert Andrew Norton said the bill’s measures around international allocations were “slightly better than the status quo” – because they would provide a “legal framework” that was currently lacking – although he opposed provider-level caps on “student choice” grounds.

Norton recommended several amendments, including tightened ministerial powers to reduce the total allocation pool. “Downward variations should not be allowed to retrospectively put providers into breach of their allocation,” Norton told the committee. “Education providers cannot make decisions for a year if their allocation can be varied down for any reason the minister chooses.”

Leeser told the Canberra briefing that net overseas migration (Nom) in Australia needed to be reduced, and “international education must be part of the balance”. But this should not be achieved through visa refusals “happening in the dark”.

“Almost every sector leader I have spoken to is telling me that they won’t reach their caps because of visa refusals for which no reasons are given,” Leeser said. “You have an international student applying for a visa which under the rules they’re probably eligible for – you’re just not getting those visas.

“The government is taking the money but not giving you visas, in this extraordinary approach to international student migration policy.”

Meanwhile, fellow frontbencher Andrew Bragg fuelled speculation about the opposition’s approach, in a wide-ranging speech to the National Press Club. Bragg, shadow minister for housing, said a Nom of less than 180,000 – down from about 300,000 now – was “manageable” through “modest reductions in international students, working holiday makers and some unskilled workers”.

Senior opposition sources subsequently insisted that shadow cabinet had not yet decided which visa programmes would be cut, according to the ABC.

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com