NLC: 20 years

The National Convenor of my beloved NLC (National Liaison Committee for International Students in Australia) delivers the following speech at the 2005 IDP Australian International Education Conference in Gold Coast, Queensland. One of the better ones from student activists, if I might say so myself.

Update: The speech yesterday ended up being a catalyst to a senate enquiry into the ESOS amendments. The vote on ESOS legislation is also off the table for now. Woooot!!

ON behalf of the National Liaison Committee for International Students in Australia, I would like to thank IDP and AEI for the opportunity to address the conference today.

NLC, since its inception, has had a close working relationship with industry groups and government bodies, seeking the betterment of international education in Australia, not just for the students, but the industry as a whole.

For those of you unfamiliar with our organisation, it might surprise you that we are as old as this industry, having grown from the student movement against the Australian Government's introduction of the Full-fee international student program back in 1986. Over the years, we have had the opportunity to continue our mission to seek excellence in the quality of education and equitable welfare for international students in Australia. With many of our policies now having been adopted either through legislation or institutional and government policies, NLC continues to strive to improve the student experience.

The National Liaison Committee for International Students in Australia is recognised by industry and government as the peak body for international students in Australia. We draw our membership from international student organisations from across the country, with branches in Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland and the Australian Capital Territories.

Having recently celebrated our 20th anniversary conference in July this year, today, I would like to share with you NLC's vision for international education in the next twenty years.

Aristotle once said "The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet". These days, as an international student in Australia, I can tell that it is as bitter as it can get.

After years of lobbying for greater intervention in the processing of visa cancellations due to errors in the department, we find that the adamant denials of fault by DIMIA in the past are but one of many schizophrenic personalities that the Australian Government has adopted for their face of international education. The question we have to ask is, without student organisations such as the NLC, who will speak for those who have been prejudiced by a system that on the one hand seem to open its arms widely to welcome them, and on the other, seeking opportunities to keep them out?

Yet, today, while I am here speaking to you about what international students would like to see for international education in the next twenty years, my fellow international students, while juggling full-time studies, are desperately fighting to ensure that student organisations such as NLC, and our membership constituents continue to exist beyond 2006. We had a brief moment of happiness this morning with reports of Senator Barnaby Joyce crossing the floor on this issue. But we are not rejoicing yet, as this government has had VSU on its radar since its parliamentary members were student politicians themselves, and as the news cycle unfolds today, we will be hearing more from their misplaced determination to get this legislation through.

In 2003, the Australian Government introduced a $113million package to strengthen International Education in Australia. NLC congratulated the minister and DEST in recognising quality assurance, not just of the
in-country activities of institutions, but also the offshore delivery of institutional programs, as a key issue that needed urgent attention.

While going across our archives since I came into office, I discovered a discussion paper prepared by NLC back in 1986. In it, it predicted quite accurately, a future of international education in Australia as a commodity, and educational institutions prepared to discount the quality of education in favour of the economic benefits reaped through the minimisation of institutional assets.

As you can see, the international education package was, in fact, the gift on a silver platter that NLC has been lobbying for since our existence. It represented a policy shift from the economics of international education to the institutional, social and cultural benefits that can be gained from the program.

Over the years, international students have had to suffer the burden of fee increases. In today's world of the free economy, where the consumer is king, one would assume that the ability to vote with one's feet is paramount in the church of corporate globalisation, the Australian Government, in 2000, at the insistence of industry groups fearing the "poaching of students, introduced a $120 fee for students who wish to transfer to another education provider, in addition to a letter expressing the current provider's permission for the student to transfer courses and a twelve month freeze on the ability for a student to attempt such a transfer. Many students, having found themselves stuck in an institution that were not meeting their expectations, unable to transfer to an alternate education provider in Australia.

It is taught in the schools of marketing and commerce that the monetary value of a product is a reflection of the quality and prestige of the product that you buy. No sane individual, having lived in this, the age of consumerism would part with money enough to buy a Bentley be satisfied with just a humble Toyota. Yet, in Australia, it seems that the Government, and education providers want prospective international students to believe that they are paying for Holden HSVs - not quite a Bentley, but enough bells and whistles to be priced above Toyota.

Every year, international students face a fee increase. Some educational institutions have publicly attributed it towards spiraling costs, others have been more honest in acknowledging that price sells. But everybody is in the same state of denial that the ability of an institution to deliver the same level of quality it did ten years ago, has vastly been deprived.

The total contribution the Commonwealth made to universities core operating costs is $4.9 billion. This funding represents 41 per cent of university funding, which is a drop from 57 per cent in 1996. Since 1996 fees and charges have risen from 13 per cent to 22 per cent and that the amount of funding obtained through HECS has risen from 12 per cent in 1996 to 16 per cent in 2003 (prior the last round of HECS increases). Total student financial contribution had risen from 25% to 38% over 1996 - 2003.

As the fees are increased, and Federal funding diminished, class sizes seem to increase exponentially, the cohort of full-time academic staff decrease, libraries cancelling journal subscriptions, international students around the country are asking what is the value of education I am paying for?

Ladies and gentleman, I am an international student. I've paid for what I thought was a HSV and got a lemon.

IDP, and the Australian Government, and many members of the Australian International Education industry want us to believe that Australia has the ability to provide quality education, and is in the same league as its global competition. So let us have a look at what some of the competition has.

Cambridge University, with a student cohort of about 16,500 students, 11,600 who are undergrads, and 5000 graduate students, of which 17% are international, operates from an endowment worth £2.7 billion ($6.4 billion Australian dollars) is embarking on an effort to raise a further £1 billion by 2012, and is currently operating with a deficit of £10.5million (or $24 million Australian dollars)

Harvard University, with a student cohort of about 19,700 students, 6,500 who are undergrads, and 12,200 graduate students, of which 17% are international, operates from an endowment worth USD$22.6billion ($30billion Australian dollars).

On some campuses in Australia, international students outnumber domestic students, comprising of up to 35% of student cohort. The current total contribution the Australian Government made to universities core operating costs is $4.9 billion. This funding represents 41 per cent of university funding, which is a drop from 57 per cent in 1996. Since 1996 fees and charges have risen from 13 per cent to 22 per cent and that the amount of funding obtained through HECS has risen from 12 per cent in 1996 to 16 per cent in 2003 (prior the last round of HECS increases). Total student financial contribution had risen from 25% to 38% over 1996 - 2003. As you can see, Australian
The industry has, for many years, prided themselves with the phrase "bigger than wheat, not as big as wool". Today, it is bigger than wheat and wool, with the $5.6billion of revenue that international students contribute to the system.

As an international student, I have to ask myself. Why is it I seem to be paying more every year, but am getting less each year?

$5.6billion is alot to crow about, but, comparing it with the competition, the annual combined revenue is not quite the value of the endowments each institution is operating from.

The Australian Government and the International education industry cannot continue to live with the illusion that international students are economic cows with an infinite supply of milk. In order to produce milk, cows need to be fed. Just because international students provide $5.6billion of revenue doesn't mean that institutional funding can be diminished. The less feed you provide, the less milk will be produced.

Ladies and gentleman, I promised you, at the beginning of this presentation, that I will be sharing with you NLC's vision of the next twenty years. So far, I have been digging up alot of the past. Rest assured, before we leave this room today, this promise will be kept. However, I cannot talk about the future, when NLC's presence at this conference next year is currently at stake. Having been participating in every conference since the Australian international education conference was first convened, NLC has had the opportunity to interact with industry, government and institutional representatives, and in our own little way, contribute to the shape of international education in Australia. For nineteen of our twenty years of existence, we have made many positive contributions to this conference. My fear, however, is that we may not exist after December this year.

If you have been following the news, the Australian Government has introduced the Anti Student Organisations legislation or commonly known as VSU "Voluntary Student Unionism". In an amendment to the Higher Education Act, the Minister has instituted measures preventing universities from the collection of fees that do not directly contribute towards academic activities.

You probably have heard from Universities, Sporting Institutions, Churches, community groups, local representatives from rural communities and of course, the students on the negative impact of such a legislation.

The NLC, is naturally, in opposition to such a legislation. While we have been known in the past to be sensitive to fee fluctuations and additional costs, this is a legislation that we cannot bring ourselves to support.
Policy makers in Canberra are obsessed with the concept of outcomes based education. Will students get jobs when they graduate? Will the degree they possess equip them with skills that employers want?

These policy makers seem to have forgotten that the University is not just a piece of land where buildings exist for individuals to join a production line where after a certain accumulation of said skills, emerge from buildings clothed in a gown and armed with a piece of paper that bestows a qualification. We have factories and sweat shops for that.

This piece of legislation intends to eliminate the student's contribution towards sporting facilities, cultural events, community building, welfare and support services on campus. Without these, the soul of the university, what difference is there between a university and a factory?

The University is about a community of individuals exchanging ideas and imagining the future. By eliminating the fees that goes to support community that is the university, this government is depriving the universities of its soul.

The Australian Government, however, doesn't just want to eliminate the student's contribution to the soul of the universities, it intends to create a divide between domestic students and international students by legislating for the ability to collect non-academic fees from international students for the provision of services listed in the National Code. This was done without much fanfare through an amendment in the ESOS legislation.

At first glance, it may seem an adequate compromise. How are universities able to provide for a legislated list of services without funding? However, the plot is more sinister than it seems, especially when the minister and his spokespeople have questioned "is the Labor Party seriously suggesting Australian students need to subsidise the activities for international students that the universities are meant to be providing?¹

Perhaps the Minister and his aides have not been doing their homework, or this is a serious case of a red herring.

I hope that there is a representative from DEST in this room, and that you will convey the following information that I will be sharing with you in the next slide with the minister.

As you can see from the slide, taken from sample universities across the country, that there is a significant difference between the fees that international students and domestic students. If the minister is suggesting that international students do not currently already pay for the services that have been legislated for, he is very mistaken.

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Melbourne University for doing the right thing and not charging any additional fees to international students. At the same time, I would like to make a plea to the University of Queensland to do the right thing. International Students are UQ are already paying for services in their fees. Do not charge us additional fees unless you intend to make it a universal fee for all students at UQ.

I would like to invite the Minister (or his representative) to be honest with us on the ESOS legislation amendments. Was the amendment introduced to allow universities to continue its current operations, or was it to allow universities to to impose an additional fee only for international students.

Lets look at the list of services that the Universities have to provide under the National Code of Practise. As you can see, many of these services are required by all students, international or domestic.

Perhaps the question we need ask the minister :"is the Liberal Party seriously suggesting International Students need to subsidise the activites for domestic students that the universities are meant to be providing?"

As I am making this presentation, the amendments to the ESOS legislation to introduce the ability for universities to collect an additional fee from international students is currently sitting on the parliamentary agenda, and there will probably be a vote today. Considering that international students in this country are of little significance to the politicians of in Australia as we do not carry any votes, this myopic amendment will probably pass.

While the rest of the student population are holding their breath in anticipation of the shape the VSU legislation will be in after negotiations within the governing coalition, international students will see a new tax adding to the financial burden of studying in Australia by the end of today.

So let me return to my promise to share with you the vision that NLC has for international education in Australia in the next twenty years.

First of all, even though we are facing extinction in the next three months, I hope that in the next twenty years, NLC will continue to play its role in the shaping of international education in Australia.

We hope that Universities will be funded to a level where it is no longer reliant on the international student population to provide revenue for their continued existence.

We hope that the Australian Government will not hold university funding at hostage with thier ideological beliefs.

We hope that class sizes and student:staff ratios are kept reasonably small.

We hope that the continued existence of university departments (especially in Arts) will not be subject to economic rationalisation.

And, finally, we hope that being an international student in Australia actually means that we get to interact with Australian students, whether in class our out.

With all these bitterness, I hope the fruit of education will truly be sweet.

If we are here again next year, you will know we achieved some success. Otherwise, it has been an enjoyable journey, this last twenty years.

Thank You.


Technorati: international education, Australia, higher education