9 votes

Poor English, few jobs: Are Australian universities using international students as 'cash cows'?

6 comments

  1. [6]
    Algernon_Asimov
    Link
    I do. I blame them. I blame them a lot! This whole article seems to be slanted towards the poor international students and the evil universities taking advantage of them. However, the students...

    I have read a lot of assignments written by international students which appear to have been written in Chinese and then translated using Google," she told the ABC.

    "I don't blame the students at all for doing that."

    I do. I blame them. I blame them a lot!

    This whole article seems to be slanted towards the poor international students and the evil universities taking advantage of them. However, the students (and possibly their parents) need to take responsibility for their own actions. If you're going to travel to another country to get yourself an education, then it's incumbent on you to learn the local language first. There's no way I would zip off to China to get a degree without having a good grasp on Chinese!

    Sure, the universities need to ensure that they take only those students who are capable of handling the courses, but the students need to make themselves capable. Noone else is responsible for their poor language skills but them.


    When I went to university the second time, to get my post-graduate diploma, there was a large number of international students in my course - some permanent migrants, but mostly temporary visitors. There were only two Australia-born people in the whole course.

    In one subject, we were broken up into random groups of about 5 people to work collectively on an assignment. Of course, as in any group like that, we got a couple of slackers. However, what pained me was one Chinese woman who struggled with even basic English. When we took the time to work through her language problems, it was obvious that she was quite intelligent and a hard worker. However, we simply didn't have the time available to coach her at every step. We just had to work around her, like we worked around the slackers. It was quite annoying.

    8 votes
    1. [5]
      Eva
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      Can you really blame them for taking advantage of opportunities basically shoved in their faces? I think it's certainly annoying that they do this, but I can't blame them so much as the system...

      Can you really blame them for taking advantage of opportunities basically shoved in their faces? I think it's certainly annoying that they do this, but I can't blame them so much as the system that allowed them to get in the situation they're at to begin with.

      When I went to university the second time, to get my post-graduate diploma, there was a large number of international students in my course - some permanent migrants, but mostly temporary visitors. There were only two Australia-born people in the whole course.

      Haha, about that...okay to be fair I can speak English well.

      EDIT: Also I mean, I was planning on never leaving. But then life happened and I got stuck with an SO who didn't want to move to the country because of {controversial regulations}, which sucked.

      2 votes
      1. [4]
        Algernon_Asimov
        Link Parent
        They're not simple animals who reflexively take whatever is offered to them. They're adults with the ability to make decisions. I agree there are faults with a system that allows people who don't...

        Can you really blame them for taking advantage of opportunities basically shoved in their faces?

        They're not simple animals who reflexively take whatever is offered to them. They're adults with the ability to make decisions.

        I agree there are faults with a system that allows people who don't have a good enough grasp of English to enrol in university studies in an English-speaking country. The tests should be stricter and the standards should be higher. But this article almost entirely glosses over the students' own responsibility for their situation. It's all "evil universities" and "poor abused students", with no balance. It's almost implying that the students have no agency of their own, and are merely unthinking pawns in the universities' machinations.

        2 votes
        1. [3]
          Eva
          Link Parent
          Oh, of course. However, it tends to get them a big leg-up in life, and if they're allowed to, they're obviously going to optimise for getting the maximum out of life. It's a misalignment of...

          They're not simple animals who reflexively take whatever is offered to them. They're adults with the ability to make decisions.

          Oh, of course. However, it tends to get them a big leg-up in life, and if they're allowed to, they're obviously going to optimise for getting the maximum out of life. It's a misalignment of incentives, really.

          I agree there are faults with a system that allows people who don't have a good enough grasp of English to enrol in university studies in an English-speaking country. The tests should be stricter and the standards should be higher. But this article almost entirely glosses over the students' own responsibility for their situation.

          Full agreeance, for the most part, with one caveat: if this was the case for some STEM fields the world would end up losing a tonne, despite it not mattering a tonne because science is a universal language.

          It's all "evil universities" and "poor abused students", with no balance. It's almost implying that the students have no agency of their own, and are merely unthinking pawns in the universities' machinations.

          Oh no, certainly not what I was trying to imply. Though the article does put that across.

          I think it's more a case of stupid universities, if blame lies anywhere. They're good-natured in theory.

          2 votes
          1. [2]
            Algernon_Asimov
            Link Parent
            In the Australian context, it's probably more like desperate universities. Australian universities were originally privately funded but, in the mid-1970s, that changed when the federal government...
            • Exemplary

            I think it's more a case of stupid universities, if blame lies anywhere. They're good-natured in theory.

            In the Australian context, it's probably more like desperate universities.

            Australian universities were originally privately funded but, in the mid-1970s, that changed when the federal government decided all Australians were entitled to a free university education and took over funding the universities. However, a successor federal government about a decade and a half later decided that students should contribute to the cost of their education and moved to a model of mixed funding, with part of the fees coming from the students and part coming from the government.

            Over time, the government has allowed universities to charge full fees to some students - especially international students. At the same time, they've been reducing government funding to universities, which has put universities in an insidious position. There are caps on the fees they're allowed to charge domestic students, and the government keeps reducing its funding - but there are no caps on the numbers or values of international students.

            Naturally, the universities have turned to international students to replace their lost government funding. They've become quite addicted to international money flowing into their coffers - hence the lowering standards for English competency, to get even more international money students in the door.

            However, none of this absolves the students themselves from their own responsibility for ensuring they have the language skills needed to undertake study in a foreign country.

            4 votes
            1. UndeniablyCool
              Link Parent
              It's a very similar situation that's happening here in the US, especially California. International students are some of the only ones that can pay the very pricey Out of State tuition fees.

              Naturally, the universities have turned to international students to replace their lost government funding. They've become quite addicted to international money flowing into their coffers - hence the lowering standards for English competency, to get even more international money students in the door.

              It's a very similar situation that's happening here in the US, especially California. International students are some of the only ones that can pay the very pricey Out of State tuition fees.

              3 votes