Interview - AFR Higher Education Summit

SUBJECTS: International education; Universities Accord; Australian Tertiary Education Commission

JULIE HARE: We know there’s caps coming. We were hoping that we were going to get some detail on that, maybe yesterday, maybe today in your speech. What’s the delay and when are universities going to know what’s happening? 

JASON CLARE, MINISTER FOR EDUCATION: You reported in the paper today that it would come out next week, Julie.

HARE: No, I said this week. Phil Coorey said yesterday. 

CLARE: Did he? 

HARE: Yes, he did. He said yesterday. 

CLARE: He’d be wrong.

HARE: Is Phil ever wrong? 

CLARE: We’re all wrong from time to time. And this sector is bigger than just international education. I wanted to paint a picture for you today about the reform that needs to happen right across the sector, not just in international education but in higher education more generally for Australian students. I make no apology for the fact that my priority in this job is to help more kids like the child I was to get a crack at getting to university. I said that in my first speech. I will dedicate every living breathing moment in this job to trying to make that a reality. 

So people should be under no illusion about what my priority is. The point I wanted to make about international education today is that I understand its importance to us as a nation. It is bigger than just this sector. Sure, it makes our universities money. It helps to fund and sustain the important research that happens in our universities and much more. More than that, it helps to support our economy; international students when they come here get jobs, buy coffee, pay rent, do lots of things that help us as a nation. Even bigger than that, even more important than that, when they go home, if they’re falling in love with us, they take that love and affection back home and in the world that we live in today, you can’t put a price tag on that. 

What we do need to do, though, is recognise the significant growth that has happened over the course of the last two years or so. International student numbers have come back faster than anyone could have predicted, particularly in VET, and make sure that we tackle the integrity issues that were there. I’ve taken some steps to do that, but there’s more we can do, more to address that, and make sure that we maintain the social licence that is a critical asset.

HARE: So, why do we need caps? I just really fundamentally don’t understand this. Steven Kennedy, the Treasury Secretary, has said that we’re going to meet the net overseas migration target without caps. You’ve said yourself just then that the problem with growth and the problem is mainly in the vocational education sector. Why are we putting caps in place? 

CLARE: There is already, effectively, a mechanism that is throttling the system right now and that’s the Ministerial Direction 107, and anybody who works at a university or works in the sector would know that. This is designed to replace that. It is a better mechanism. Part of the reason we’re doing this is a lot of universities have come to me over the course of this year and said, “The impact of that is hurting our universities.”

HARE: Could you just explain for those people in the room who don’t know what Ministerial 107 is, what it is and the implications of it? 

CLARE: Put your hand up if you don’t know what Ministerial Direction 107 is. There’s a couple. Okay. So, Ministerial Direction 107 categorises universities into three different categories and affects the speed at which your visas are processed based on risk. It means that some universities have more students today than they had last year. It means a number of universities have significantly less. It also means that the time it’s taken to process a visa for a university has taken longer in the case of universities that are in that second and third category. I think [indistinct] talk about that now students are coming back into the [indistinct] because of that process. A lot of universities have made the point to me that that’s affected their bottom line. It’s affected the way international students see us as a country, if it’s taken a long time to get a visa or they’ve been rejected, and I’ve sought a better way to provide more certainty for them about the number of students they can educate each year and process those visas up to that level quicker. That’s the intention behind these reforms. 

HARE: Okay. But universities have no control over where they are, even universities that – they have no control over the number of visa rejections they’ve been getting. It’s coming out of Home Affairs, so there’s stuff happening at Home Affairs that are affecting things in education. 

CLARE: Yeah, absolutely. That’s the point I’m trying to make. It’s not like there’s a sort of system at the moment where universities or the broader tertiary education system can simply get as many international students as they like. There is a system in place at the moment that’s managed by Home Affairs that’s having positive impacts on some universities and a negative impact for others, and there is a better and a fairer way to do this.

HARE: Okay. So, could you just kind of give us an indication of how many international students is too many international students? 

CLARE: I’m not going to put a number on it.

HARE: Oh, come on! 

CLARE: The right answer to this is a level that maintains the support for this important sector in this country and enables us as a nation to build stronger relationships with other countries in our region. And that’s why I often make the point that international education shouldn’t be seen as a one‑way street. It’s not just about a student coming from China or India or Vietnam or the Philippines to study here. It can and it should also be about Australian universities going to them, because not every international student is going to be able to afford to live here, to study here, so we can take what we do better than almost any other country in the world to them. Now, I know that that is not what every university is going to want to do or can do. Some TAFEs are doing it. Some universities are doing it already. In the conversations that I have with countries around the world, they’re very keen for us to bring our universities to them. India is just, I guess, a classic example of that.

HARE: But the numbers are very small with transnational caps… 

CLARE: They are at the moment. They most certainly are. But when you think about what India is trying to do. I talked about the ambition that we have as a nation to have 80 per cent of Australians with a tertiary qualification by 2050. That means increasing the proportion of our workforce with a tertiary qualification from 60 per cent to 80 per cent in 25 years. India wants to double the number of people with a tertiary qualification in the next 10. They want to go from having 1,000 universities to 2,000 universities. The size and the scale of India’s ambition when it comes to education is audacious, and they want our help. So, there is an opportunity for all of us there to grasp it.

HARE: Just finally, as everyone on the first panel spoke about, and obviously you didn’t hear it, is the issue of cross‑subsidisation, which is that international students cross‑subsidise research and cross‑subsidise domestic students. I think one of the instances was brought up that a medical student is given government and HECS funding to the total of about $26,000, but it costs over $40,000 to educate them. So, as part of these reforms in terms of the caps on international students, the migration strategy, is there a more holistic approach in terms of how the funding will fill that gap if those students are taken away? 

CLARE: Again, just remember what’s happened over the last few years. A $40 billion industry has dropped to a $20 billion industry with the pandemic and it’s now returned. The intention here is not to turn a $40 billion or $50 billion industry back to a $20 billion industry. I get how important this is in the funding of our universities. 

The only other point I should make, and I touched on this in the debate in the House of Representatives last week, and I raise this just because on the panel a moment ago we talked about what a Tertiary Education Commission can and should do, but, I guess, looking to underline two things. 

One is I want people’s feedback about the design of that Commission. I want to make sure that we get it right. I hear what people are saying about it needing to be necessarily independent of government and there’s work going on to make sure that that’s represented. There’s a level of anxiety in the sector at the moment about that discussion paper. The purpose of that discussion paper was to hear you and I am hearing you. To get real discussion. I think some people just thought that discussion paper was, “This is what we’re doing.” No, it’s, “Tell us what to do.” And there is potentially an important role for that Commission to play here in the setting of levels for international education in the future. 

People have made the point to me that if you want to make sure that these powers are implemented properly, they would best rest with a Tertiary Education Commission once it’s established. That’s identified in that discussion paper and there’s work going on in the detailed and design of it now so that when that Commission is established, it will play that role.

HARE: Just finally, I know you have to rush off and get back on a plane back to Canberra, but with the Tertiary Education Commission, it’s kicking a whole lot of problems down the road – so, job-ready graduates, setting targets for international students, you know, equity numbers. The commission isn’t even going to start being in place until mid-2025 if everything goes according to plan and then further and then it’s got to establish itself. Shouldn’t some of these issues, including job-ready graduates, be addressed now – and international students and funding be addressed now while you’re still in government because there is a chance that you might not be in government perhaps this time next year? And so, what happens in that kind of void as we change governments and policy direction? 

CLARE: That’s, in essence, what that Commission is all about. Sarah is here and Sarah may be the minister in six months’ time. What I’m trying to build here is something that outlives me, that outlives the government, that builds bipartisan support. There’s always going to be argy‑bargy at the edges, but I think we all agree how important this sector is and if we design this Commission right, then it is the steward for more than one government, for more than one minister. Mary’s report, the Accord, is ginormous and if you read it carefully, what the Accord team are not saying is, “do all this now.” They’re saying, “Build a road map for the next 25 years.” 

Now we are often accused, because of the short‑termism of politics, that we only focus on tomorrow or we only focus on the next three years. There’s got to be a body that can help to carry this over the next decade to make sure that we implement it in stages. I haven’t said, “We’re implementing this, this, this and this and we’re not going to do that.” I haven’t ruled out anything. I’ve just said, “Here is where we start”, and I’m not going to apologise for starting with equity.

HARE: Minister Clare, thank you so much.

CLARE: Thank you.