The draft International Education and Skills Strategic Framework, released late last month, calls for integrity. We suggest this can be achieved by a strategy that responds to global needs – as well as Australia’s – needs. 

The ability of individual international students to pay fees determines access to Australian universities. There is no consideration of the educational needs of the countries from which students come or even serious  consideration of  Australia’s strategic interests.

We suggest a policy which combines international students in Australia and transnational online education, targeted to global educational needs and Australia’s national interest.

We are encouraged the Framework frequently refers for future education to be conducted with integrity.  At the micro level, greater integrity should feature in the recruitment of students and all the processes associated with their Australian education.  At the macro level educational offerings should address the current concerns expressed by many international policy scholars and ethicists. That is, the widening gap between the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ in and among members of the international community.  

Three vital actions

We note and support especially the last three actions proposed in the Framework:

• Expanding offshore, online, and other innovative arrangements to diversify the sector.
• Contributing to global skills needs.
• Advancing Australia’s strategic interests

These suggestions chime with recommendations in the Universities Accord to ‘support diversification of international student markets… including through using innovative transnational education delivery modes’.

We would add our hope that the ethical integrity of our educational offerings would include a deep and thoughtful concern to see global inequity reduced.

A missed opportunity for knowledge diplomacy

The focus of the higher education sector on the benefit of international students to Australian universities and to the wider economy is emphasised throughout most of the writings on international students, including in this latest Strategic Framework. 

But this is not likely to earn the respect of the countries from which our students come. It also misses the opportunities to utilise international partnerships for the common good. The term knowledge diplomacy refers to ‘a new approach to understanding the role of international higher education, research, and innovation in strengthening relations among countries and addressing common global challenges.’ It depends on ‘collaboration, reciprocity, and mutuality.’ Taking account of global, rather than solely Australia’s, needs in Australia’s approach to international education would have integrity and could contribute to knowledge diplomacy.

Education of international students should be based on an appraisal of the needs of the national populations from which we draw them

Using 2022 data for higher education enrolment of international students in Australian universities, we show, three countries in South-East Asia stand out as having very high access rates 

These are Singapore (403 students in Australia per 100,000 population), Brunei Daraussalam (115 per 100,000) and Malaysia (63 per 100,000).  At the same time, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, the Philippines, and Indonesia have rates less than 5 per 100,000 population. 

Malaysia and Singapore together provided nearly half (47%) of South-East Asian international student numbers in Australia in 2022 but comprised only six per cent of the total population of South-East Asia. Indonesia provided 12 per cent of South-East Asian international student numbers in Australia but make up 40% of South-East Asia’s combined population.

Looking more broadly, in 2022, per 100,000 population, median rates of students coming to Australian universities were: Indian subcontinent 42, Pacific 28.9, China 10.5, South-East Asia 5.8, Sub-Saharan Africa 0.5: there was wide variation between countries within these regions.

It is difficult to see how these figures accord with Australia’s short-term strategic interests, let alone go far in honouring integrity (especially equity). 

Longer-term, global populations will change. Nigeria is projected to have a larger population than China by 2100, as previously noted. The populations of many African countries will have doubled by 2050.   Our planning for the future of international education should surely take the massive future growth among the youth of Africa into account.

A network of global online learning

We support the Framework’s mention of online learning. It has the potential to correct needs unmet by onshore education in Australia. 

We propose expanding Australia’s international education through online learning, facilitated by a collaborative online global network. This would have several advantages.  

First, it would offer education to individual students who would otherwise miss out from education in their local setting or an Australian in-person setting. .

Second, it could help redress the current inequities in global access to Australia’s higher education.

Third,  Australian universities have adopted a largely competitive business model (with some exceptions mainly in research) with regard to international connections.  The pedagogic locus of control remains firmly lodged in individual Australian universities.  The manifest advantages of collaboration include building capacity among international universities for broad-spectrum academic activity including research. The network must include global universities. This would also avoid the accusation of colonisation of knowledge – of which Government and universities should be aware. 

Fourth, it could match the provision of international education with Australia’s international strategic interests while providing long-term sustainability to the higher education sector. It would also set the scene for knowledge diplomacy as discussed above.

What would a network of global online learning look like?

Following a full international needs assessment for global higher education to which Australian universities might contribute, we repeat previous suggestions that such a network would require Australian universities to collaborate with each other as the key drivers of the network. Other universities in the global south should join the network. We need an infrastructure to include IT support and an appropriate quality assurance process should underpin the network.

We appreciate that the income of many Australian universities has come to depend on international student fees. 

Online offshore (transnational) education should be delivered at cost, rather than the high fees currently charged which cross-subsidise other parts of Australia’s higher education system. We propose a combination of onshore education in Australia and offshore online education. This would be more sustainable. It would be better received by other countries – and it would offer a more equitable approach. 

Rather than argue about numbers of international students coming to Australia, an assessment of capacity to offer a combination of onshore and offshore education would allow the development of a strategy with integrity to address inequity in global educational opportunity.  

Richard Heller is emeritus professor at the Universities of Newcastle, Australia and Manchester, UK. He has been involved in educational programmes to build public health capacity in low- to middle-income population throughout his career. As Professor of Public Health in Manchester he set up the University’s first online master’s degree. He founded and coordinates the fully online volunteer-led Peoples-uni educational charity, offering master’s and continuing professional development awards.

Stephen Leeder is Emeritus Professor of public health and community medicine at the University of Sydney. Steve has 45 years of experience in epidemiological research and in medical education reform as a member of the foundation faculty in the new medical school in Newcastle and as dean of the Sydney medical school. He is currently Co-Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Epidemiology and was chair of the Western Sydney Local Health District Board from 2011 until 2016.