Stories about recent violence against Indian students in Melbourne and
the international response have emphasised the importance of
international education to Australia in purely quantitative, dollar-based terms. The phrase '$15 billion international education
industry' seemed to be pasted formulaically into every article. None
asked whether there was a value to Australia, or to international
students, beyond that calculation.
Unwittingly, the press, as well as the political leaders who are
properly concerned about the situation, doubtless benign in and of
themselves, are revealing but not addressing the fundamental cause of
the problem.
There is not such a great difference between
opportunistic acts of petty crime in the outer suburbs which target
international students, and opportunistic educational policies and
practices which target international students. A
government which will not grant international students concessional
public transport fares has only shaky ground to stand on when it
condemns attacks on those who ride trains and buses late at night.
Both violent acts and 'violent' policies objectify the students. Each involves a short-sighted desire for immediate gain whose ramifications for all involved
have scarcely been thought through.
When you reduce the talent, the
needs and the aspirations of thousands of young people to an industry
that generates a certain number of dollars, you treat the individuals
involved as less than who and what they are.
Australia is justly proud of its institutions of higher learning, some
of which are of world class, and others of which at least do well in
providing skills and generating ideas which can serve the greater
good, here and further afield. International students have an
acknowledged place in them, given Australia's developed institutions
and strong traditions of academic quality, which may be hard for many
to access, in the developing world particularly.
There is no need to
be coy about the fact that this engagement has economic benefits for
Australia, as well as for students' home countries, when they are able
to return and make their various contributions with new skills.
Yet the basis for any educational enterprise must be more than
economic; or rather the 'economics' of education have to be more holistic, concerned with how the production and distribution of
resources can be carried out so as to serve the common good, as all
economics should be.
The economics of anything by this definition
concern the fundamental wellbeing of all the participants. This
recognition is necessary even for the financial definitions of success
to be met: a '$15 billion dollar international student industry' is no
drawcard; only a desire for excellence, and a vision that education
can transform lives, can undergird a sustainable education sector.
Violence is not the only cause for concern for international students.
Can we sustain the institutions and the educational experience we
offer, when selling them seems to be the only public concern? Will we
convince anyone that the security of individuals matters to us when we
are obviously looking harder at 'metrics' to do with Australian
advantage rather than real people or the needs of developing countries?
While critical attention is fortuitously being given to some of the
'bottom feeder' private teaching bodies of the shopfront kind at
present by relevant oversight agencies, the problem is not just a lack
of 'quality assurance'. When Australia's universities are themselves
under-funded and enrol international students based on balance-sheet
needs rather than any broader strategy of international partnership
and engagement, a whole branch of education policy is revealed as
bankrupt.
At the high end of the quality spectrum as well as the low,
we risk objectifying students and jeopardising the very thing that
makes Australian education attractive: a quality that arises from commitment and from values deeper than those of balance-sheets.
The world we inhabit is not a set of closed systems, but a deeply-interdependent network of communities. Australia is a relatively small
player in this small world, but has privileges and resources that
bring great responsibility and some hope of a positive role in a very
different future.
A country that could speak of that responsibility,
and of the need for international partnership and understanding as a
basic element of education policy, would have a better chance of being
a country that could show partnership and understanding to individual
Indian students, present and future, too.
Associate Professor Andrew McGowan is Warden of Trinity College,
The University of Melbourne. He blogs at Andrew's Version and Royal Parade Diary.