Australia's International Students Cap May Not Be Implemented

After the Coalition’s decision to oppose the government's decision to cap international student enrollments, the fate of the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendments (Quality and Integrity) Bill 2024 looms in uncertainty.

After Australia announced a cap of 270,000 for international students enrolment from next year, this decision was strongly opposed by the country's university sector and now Coalition has also decided to oppose the government on the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendments (Quality and Integrity) Bill 2024.

In the next two weeks, the Australian parliament is expected to have debates on the same. The centre-left Labor government wants to put a cap on international student enrolment to curb increasing immigration and relieve the housing crisis before the federal election to be held in May.

While opposing this, Sarah Henderson, the education spokesperson for the centre-right Liberal-National coalition, said, "The bill is chaotic and confusing and fails to address the structural issues the government has created. We cannot support measures which will only serve to compound this crisis of the government's making. Based on their record so far we have absolutely no confidence the government is capable of fixing its immigration mess."

Group Of Eight Australia Welcomes Coalition’s Decision To Oppose The Bill

Group of Eight (Go8) Chief Executive Vicki Thomson commented on this and said, "This outcome puts Australia’s national interest ahead of short-term political posturing and restores certainty. The Coalition, Greens and Independents' intention to oppose the Government’s Bill in the Senate opens the door for a constructive discussion about how we should not only manage growth in the international education sector but how we fund our university-based research effort."

"The Go8 supports managed growth that is founded on integrity and quality and we have long said we need a sensible discussion about how to achieve this. From the outset, the Government’s plan to cap international students was chaotic, short-sighted and not in the long-term national interest.  International students were blamed for everything from the housing crisis to the rising cost of living, yet responsible for neither. International students became the scapegoat in a politically motivated migration debate," he added.

“A Bill intended to weed out shonky and dodgy providers developed into a genuine threat to Australia’s most successful services export worth $51 billion, international education. There’s no question we need to have a discussion about how we manage the sector going forward – including timely and fair visa processing procedures for international students – but importantly we need to recognise how we got into this position. Successive governments have encouraged and supported Australia’s international education sector but it has come at the expense of adequately funding our domestic teaching and our research," Vicki Thomson further added.

Australia's International Students Cap: More Updates

End Mass Migration-Australia, the Secretary of the British Australian Community, said on the X platform, "The Liberal Party made a poor decision not to support a cap on foreign student visas. The number of foreign students studying in Australia has been able to escalate from 288,500 in 2005, to a record 803,639 for the year end Aug 2024. A cap is necessary to ease the housing crisis."

 

Peter Strachan's message on X says, "Pre-pandemic, Australia had the highest concentration of international students globally. As of August 2024, Australia had just under 970,000 international students enrolled, up nearly 130,000 on 2019 enrolment levels, driving up rental costs."

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