There is no doubt, international students are generating a great revenue to the universities. That is why universities are compromising on their own educational and specifically, English standards.
Four corners is a blog of a news channel called ABC news. It has published a report about these universities and called them cash cows. The report stated that universities are only interested in making revenue.
This report affects many universities because the Australian government take this issue seriously and forced universities to raise their English and educational standards. The only university that is getting benefit in this condition is UTAS. Admissions of international students at UTAS are increasing.
The UTAS administration acts smartly and adds an English skills letter with the visa application. Although this letter is still not fulfilling their universities standard, at least in front of the government, they are showing complete legal documentation.
In 2017, at the University of Tasmania, numbers of international students were 5038. For the tertiary education provider, these students gave $94,272 in return for fees and charges.
The medium of instruction letters was used by UTAS admission staff in order to determine a student’s English skills. Visa application has included a part of the medium of instruction letter. Admission staff is using the letters as proof of English skill levels. They are not following their university’s own English language written exams and tests.
Rufus Black who is vice-chancellor of the UTAS declared that the method would terminate as soon as possible and started a survey into admissions practices for international students. The chancellor gave that statement after the publication of the report.
The report also enhances the importance of international students for UTAS and other Australian universities because they are progressing towards a new phase of learning.
It is stated in the annual report of UTAS that after the changes to state nomination, strengthened an additional significant improvement in student numbers for that year and student fee revenue raised by 44%.
This revenue more raised up to $86 million in 2017 by international students. To encourage more international students a lot of initiatives were taken by the Government in the visa process.
It seems that international students are focused on UTAS for many years. Data found in the annual report of 2017 that is the most recent document of UTAS, stated that there was a 6% increase in the number of international students. This documentation is available on UTAS’s website.
In another record, the numbers of domestic students were 16,786 in 2016 while in 2017, the numbers of students become 16,766.
Professor Black said in the imperative administration’s report that the decrease in heart domestic numbers have mostly been hidden financially by the increase in international students but they will always only be dragged to a limited part of our offering. The sustainability of the rest depends on us recovering those numbers in the main subjects.
New Direction of UTAS:
A representative at UTAS stated that there is still an important place for international students in the social and educational fabric of the university.
The more he said that diversification linked with our work to expand our domestic student body from within Tasmania and interstate. That will be fundamental to the sustainability of the university.
The university proposed recently adaptable offerings that strengthen the city in entrepreneurship and business. The new offering of Bachelor of Business degree has attracted more than 100 enrolments in the first year. There are mostly domestic students in this discipline.
International students are more attracted to the Master of Professional Accounting and the Master of Information Technology and Systems.
Still, international students are considered a crucial part of the university and they have a positive impact on society.
Australian Universities are Compromising on English-standard to Enroll International Students
