Overseas students dump Australia for Canada and COVID-ravaged Britain – Sydney Morning Herald

University of Technology Sydney deputy vice-chancellor Iain Watt said agents also saw “instances of students who were planning to come to Sydney who have given up on being allowed to travel to Australia and therefore accepted alternative offers to study in the UK or Canada.”

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“We expect the numbers will increase very rapidly if it becomes clear that the Australian government does not intend to allow students in time for the commencement of the spring semester in July,” Mr Watt said.

Ravi Singh, the director of Global Reach which represents Australian universities in south Asia, said a pipeline of students with Australian visas were “now getting very jittery”.

“Some of them want to withdraw and go to another country,” he said. “In the last couple of months, a lot of students have been saying they don’t want to continue studying online and both the UK and Canada have been accepting students to return to their campuses.”

Gary Li, president of the Education Consultants Association of Australia which represents education agents for students in China said many students who had completed an Australian undergraduate degree, were now asking about post-graduate study options in Britain.

“The inquiries have increased a lot recently,” he said. “It is surprising because the COVID situation is out of control and there is a new kind of the virus there, but in the last two weeks, we had a number of students who were supposed to come to Australia fly to the UK instead.”

International students are shifting to move to the UK and Canada because of Australia’s coronavirus restrictions. Credit:Kate Geraghty

Higher education researcher Peter Hurley from Victoria University’s Mitchell Institute said losses to Australia’s international student industry, worth $40 billion in 2019, would be significant.

“The continued reduction in the stock of international students means 2021 should be the year the financial impact of the crisis will bite,” he said.

Mr Li said a large number of students in China studying the Victoria Certificate of Education (VCE) were also inquiring about studying in the UK. “It will take a number of years for Australia to recover from its lost market share,” he said.

The federal government controls international borders and national cabinet, which includes the NSW and Victorian premiers, has temporarily halved the cap on international arrivals.

The NSW government has shelved plans to return 1000 international students each week. Only 63 students returned to Australia last year through a safe corridors trial run by the Northern Territory government.

Chief executive of the International Education Association of Australia Phil Honeywood said the Victorian government had produced no dates or numbers for any planned return of international students, despite flagging plans to make a submission to national cabinet.

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“Given international education is Victoria’s biggest industry, we are pleased the Premier has given it some priority, however as with NSW, the devil is going to be in the detail about indicative dates, numbers and logistics,” Mr Honeywood said.

Mr Hurley said, even if they went ahead, trials to bring back small numbers of international students already enrolled with Australian universities would not have a substantial impact on restarting the flow of new international students into Australia.

In October 2019 almost 51,000 new and returning international students arrived in Australia and contributed more than $40 billion to the Australian economy including the property and retail sectors. In October 2020, the number of new and returning students had fallen to just 130.

A University of Sydney spokeswoman said, with competitor countries such as Canada and the UK welcoming international students, “we run a serious risk of losing potential students which will have an ongoing impact on our campus and broader economy”.

The spokeswoman said applications from international students for first semester this year were up by approximately 11.5 per cent on 2020, but acceptance rates were below what they were this time last year.

Mr Honeywood said Australia’s key competitor countries, including Canada and the UK, had “done well at our expense” and were providing clear transparent information about the entry of returning and new international students.

“What we desperately need from our federal government is an indicative date which students, their families and their education providers can work towards,” he said. “This will provide hope when currently all they get is mixed messages.”

Student recruiter IDP Connect surveyed more than 5000 international students in October and found more than half with applications for Australian and New Zealand universities were considering a switch to another destination if it meant they could start on campus sooner.

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IDP Connect chief executive officer Simon Emmett said an increasing number of international students who planned to study in Australia were now considering other countries. He said a quarter of students who had applied to Australian universities, including many who held offers, would consider switching to Canada and 15 per cent said would go to the UK.

IDP data shows 44 per cent of students said they were only willing to study online for three months before transitioning to face-to-face teaching.

A spokeswoman for the federal Department of Education, Skills and Employment said international student arrivals “can only be considered when Australians wishing to come back to Australia have returned in substantial numbers”.

RMIT said its international student applications were down by about 25 per cent compared to the same time last year. “The biggest drop has been in students who rely on part-time work to support themselves while studying in Melbourne,” and RMIT spokeswoman said.

RMIT , the University of Melbourne and Monash all said they were working closely with the Victorian Government and other Victorian universities to bring international students back to Victoria.