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Tue, 21/04/2009 - 14:17

Students mistreated?

Dodgy colleges exploiting students, Indian university students being mocked in Melbourne because they openly wear jewellery and speak up loud in the train, racial attacks in Newcastle, misleading education agents in Sydney, these are just some examples from articles in Australian newspapers over the last few months. What is going on? Is Australia becoming a dangerous place for international students?

Mistreatment

The newspaper `The Herald’ (15-04-2009) quoted students in Newcastle saying that: “people often yelled obscenities at them from passing cars, one had a drink bottle thrown at his head sitting at a bus stop, while another said youths had tried to intimidate them by standing in front of their car. But they said the situation was worse for African and Muslim students, especially women. " Another student said:”If you speak in another language on the phone people get hostile towards you.”

No wonder The National Union of Students is asking the federal Government to launch an inquiry into the mistreatment of international students in Australia. International education is after all a 14 billion dollar business and all those students that visit Australia expect a warmer welcome than portrayed in the press.

Do international students like their stay?

There is a problem however. Very little independent research is known into `how International students experience their stay in Australia`. We do not know how serious and widespread racism, exploitation and security concerns are. We know all about the number of students visiting Australia and where they come from. But very little is known (at least open to the public) about for example how students spend their time, do they enjoy their stay, do they experience racism or what do they think about security? There are some negative signs: almost a year ago Monash University's Professor Chris Nyland co-authored a study which found nearly 60 per cent of international students were being paid less than the minimum wage - often less than $10 an hour. He’s asked the government for change, but Canberra remained quiet. On the other hand, I spoke an Argentinean student in Melbourne and she was delighted to be able to travel home by train in the middle of the night without feeling afraid of being attacked. She told me that she would never try this in her hometown Buenos Aires as personal safety is much worse than in Australia.

Personally, as a foreigner, I recognise the strange Australian sport of yelling abusive language out of a fast driving car. I guess it has to do with innocent repressed behaviour, as young Australians are thoroughly taught to be well behaved at all times. But I do not feel unsafe or exploited and believe Australia to be overall a safe, friendly and polite society. A place where immigrants from all over the world live together peacefully, and where most people get the chance `to have a go`.

Students unhappy? Waking a sleeping dog

So why doesn’t the government publish studies about issues being raised in newspapers? Satisfaction studies by universities do not help us, as they can often be regarded as marketing material. One reason I can think of is that people do not want to `wake up a sleeping dog`. An official report on the concerns of international students could raise considerable attention in the national and international press and possibly harm the great brand `study Australia`. However: the alternative is worse. If a large percentage of international students for various reasons is unhappy about their stay Down Under it could very well lead to consequences far beyond a bit of negative publicity, as many students come here by referral and negative first hand advice will harm the industry. To stop matters going from bad to worse, the problems must be identified and put in perspective first.

Solution: Tell me how you like Australia

We don not want to wait for the government to start an investigation, so I invite everyone to write a comment beneath telling me how you like living and studying in Australia, what your concerns are and most of all what are your solutions. Let’s start an independent research on student satisfaction today! Thank you for your cooperation.

Bert

Links: face scan for international students

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(1 comments)

Comments

Creatingchange said:

Hi,

I taught at an international college, and of course through my Strategic Foresight and Entrepreneurship/ Innovation Masters streams have worked in multiple teams with people from all over the world.

My comments are about my experience in that field of international college training, as a teacher, not about the experience of students at universities (in post grad), which is very different and very enriching I think in many cases.

My experience was that the international college/s seem to place a lot of emphasis on policies and procedures, compliance factors for DIMEA, and for their insurance companies or other accrediting agencies. There were policies and records to be kept for it seemed, everything, and the "culture" was that of anticipating there would be mass-cheating efforts.

I find this unusual, and wrong, (more likely, wrongly-interpreted by administrators in colleges) as "best practices in learning" and "assessing competency" in the Australian RTO system encourages things like team activities, real-life workplace scenarios and role plays, and awards "competency" (read: PASSING) on the final outcomes of the actions or responses, not primarily on a series of parrot-like test responses. This is not learning, it was merely memory-based reguritation of words. It is not even necessary that the student comprehended the words well (of course, many did), but just that they could write them down well enough to meet the "corrections" listed as "right". And the stress levels of the "exam" structure and frequency itself was a major factor in student's lives.

I found also that teaching materials were left primarily to grow old and out of date, had multiple errors therein, and unless audited, were "thin" on content and quality. The lessons were designed to be delivered with a focus on classroom learning that mirrored primary school, rather than adult learning principles, and students primarily just were lucky if they had a teacher that provided innovative, deep, complex materials and insights to "real" worklife here in Australia. Many of the students are in courses that they should be undertaking either in an experiential, consultative and project-based manner, or getting some Reconition of Prior Learning/Recognition of Competency for, as they may be in a Certificate in Business, for example, but already hold a Degree in Hospitality - or doing Hospitality, and have an Accounting qual.

I know there are many reasons for these course choices, but also there are ways to address adult learning that offer students and future employers a well-rounded education, with real insights to the differences in working and living in a new country. Cultural differences are very impactful and can be so easily misinterpreted by co-workers (and co-learners!), and these need to be opened up in a safe and analytical forum that creates a learning team in the classroom. The teacher should be a facilitator on multiple levels, not a "marker of tests" as is often the case.

The other issue is that despite having sections related to assisted job-search, assisted housing, counselling and so on, very few students actually benefited from the services as the help was either simplistic (and we are talking about a person who has extra job-search needs, not one who can merely be handed a resume template to fill in) or the housing was not a real match (lots of reasons), and the counselling was seen as potentially "failing" at being a success, or even a threat to the student's chances of passing and being able to stay on in the course/country.

I believe the induction processes may have been far too much information in too short a time period, and a very major revamp of the offerings, including debriefing of teachers experiences through a non-identifiable feedback mechanism may have some value. Whilst I see lots of issues and challenges to these brief ideas (no hope of explaining it all in this short note), I believe some students survive, others fail, not only always through academic reasons but more from social isolation, emotional effects, and poor guidance leading to a series of negative events.

When organisations such as AITD (Aust Institute of Training & Development) exist, individual students are met, relationships and often a solid understanding grows between the teacher and student, and such a plethora of wonderful ways of imparting knowledge are available, it saddened me to teach in such a manner.

Kind Regards