Successive Lib/Lab common policy in Australia has migrant students displacing domestic students
Domestic students disadvantaged from tertiary education placements
Successive Lib/Lab common ideology in Australia has migrant students displacing indigenous & domestic students. What is the standard of literacy and numeracy of domestic students compared with children of recent economic immigrants - notably the many dominating expensive selective schools! Where is the research?
We know that migrants settle in the capital cities where work opportunities are concentrated and perpetuated by government policy and funding. So it is rural Australia where the situation of non-migrants perhaps is more evident.
A 2007 study 'Regional Young People and Youth Allowance: Access to Tertiary Education' by Naomi Godden of Charles Sturt University found gross education disadvantages faced by young people in regional Australian in regards to access to tertiary education. The majority of these young people are non-migrant.
An 'Inquiry into Rural and Regional Access to Secondary and Tertiary Education Opportunities' has found that in the NSW rural town of Young typically less than half of Year 12 graduates are accepted into university, and that of them less than 20% are able to take up the offer.
"The most pressing reason why students do not pursue tertiary studies is undoubtedly financial hardship. With no universities locally or within travelling distance, students are forced to move away from home to gain access to university. The cost of accommodation and transport are the biggest cost for students. They put a conservative figure of $15000 for basic food and accommodation at regional universities or $20000 per year as the cost of supporting a student in Sydney. This is a huge impost on parents, and one which many simply can’t afford. There is NO public transport in Young. We do not have rail or coach services. The last Students who cannot access university at the end of Year 12 often find jobs locally and If we are to have an “education revolution” we need to be supporting students and families from rural and regional Australia to access tertiary study. The fact that students have to move away from home and cannot access public transport means that the government needs to provide equitable access to these students by financial resources. Without this there is simply gross discrimination against people from these rural and regional areas."
remaining coach link between Young and Canberra was terminated last year. Rail
services are only available to Harden, (30km), Cootamundra (50km) or Yass(85km)
There are no buses which link with these services to Young. This means that students
have to have their own transport which is an additional major cost.
never end up going to university because it is out of their reach. If the age for
independent youth allowance is increased to 22, many more students will be lost to the
tertiary education system.
Australian education discrimantly migrant-student-dependent for financial survival
Australian Universities have had their funding slashed by successive Lib/Lab governments forcing the universities to source their own funding. That funding is most readily available from migrant students prepared to pay full fees up front.
It is a systemic problem undermining Australia's competitive capacity. It is one of the despicable legacies of the Howard Era, as elucidated in the following Sydney Morning Herald article by journalist, Simon Marginson, 'Let's work together to fix university funding', back on 22nd February 2008:
"What we are seeing in this sector is the Howard political legacy, which left tertiary education in poor condition and disengaged from the policy process.
Mr Howard saw the universities as a political problem to be controlled, not a site for economic, social and cultural investment. He played wedge politics, underfunded the universities and talked down domestic student participation.
Between 1995 and 2004, Australia reduced public funding of universities and TAFE by 4 per cent. We were the only OECD nation to reduce public funding. The average OECD country increased it by 49 per cent.
Meanwhile, in Australia, fee-paying international students were pumped up to fill the funding gap, tertiary student numbers rose by one-third and public funding per student dropped by 28 per cent."
'Melbourne University, like other universities across Australia, is heavily dependent on international students and their full-fees to subsidise places for domestic students, whom the federal government under-funds.' [Source: 'Melbourne’s financial viability questioned as graduate employment rates plummet', by William Horton 15th March 2010].
Successive Lib/Lab governments have sapped taxation funding from educational institutions from child care through primary and secondary schools to tertiary level including both universities and TAFE alike. Teaching quality in the public system has declined resulting in a boom in private education but only for those who can afford it.
Typically well-heeled economic migrants can afford it, while many domestic students, particularly indigenous Australians and regional Australians cannot. So we have an increasing class society increasing dominated by a new class of economic migrants who are increasing their socio-political influence in this country.
Look at Australian migrant student statistics!
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, International Students in Australia, "the number of overseas visitors arriving in Australia to study in 2005 was 375,000, more than ten times the number (30,000) that arrived in 1985. In 2004, Australia was the fifth largest destination globally for overseas students."
According to a recent Parliamentary report ' Overseas students: immigration policy changes 1997–May 2010' dated 18th June 2010, the Howard Coalition Government from 1998 instigated a major international marketing campaign to promote Australia’s education and training services industry overseas focusing on traditional Asian markets as well as emerging markets of India, China, Europe and North and South America. It spent $21 million on the campaign under the new dedicated Australian Education International (AEI).
The clichéd justification was to address 'skills shortages and an ageing population' but instead of educating domestic students, Howard invited 'skilled migration' and migrant students. Somehow this was to 'increase Australia’s global competitiveness'.
Then in March 1999, Howard introduced the Migration Occupations in Demand List (MODL)—a list of occupations that were deemed to be in national shortage. Australia then got swamped with accountants, cooks, waiters, hairdressers, construction contractors, mining contractors, transport drivers and taxi drivers. [These are jobs many Australians missed out on. In the public service there is even more evidence of reverse discrimination. Most non-executive government position are now occupied by migrants particularly those based in Melbourne and Sydney - the Education, Health, the RTA, VicRoads, Railcorp, Sydney Buses. Indeed, this author's personal experience in government has observed over three quarters of positions occupied by workers with non-Australian accents].
Then in July 2001, Howard allowed overseas students who had completed their course in Australia to apply for permanent residency through the Skilled-Independent (and related) visa categories of the GSM program and were exempted from work experience requirements. This lead to a 27% increase in offshore student visa grants between 2001 and 2003.
Then in December 2003, Howard relaxed the requirement to have sufficient funds to live and study in Australia and being proficient in English. Strangely enough subsequent studies in 2005 and 2006 revealed that while, generally, skilled migrants were achieving high levels of employment former overseas students may not have been achieving employment outcomes that were commensurate with their skills and qualifications. Evidence suggested that strong English language skills and relevant work experience were crucial to achieving good employment outcomes.
Under the Rudd Labor Government [2008–May 2010] permanent skilled immigration was increased by 30% - 6000 places in February 2008 and a further 31 000 places in May 2008. Skilled migration now comprised 68% of the entire Migration Program.
The Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) has revealed:
* Since June 2001, the number of student visa holders in Australia had grown by an average rate of 13.9 % p.a.
* Student visa applications grew by 20% in 2008–09, while the number of student visas granted grew by 15.2 per cent, resulting in a total of 320 368 student visa grants in that year.
The number of visa grants in the VET sector (subclass 572 visas) increased by 52% in 2008–09, while the share of VET sector visas in the broader overseas student program increased from 25% in 2007–08 to 32% in 2008–09.
* India has replaced China as the top source country for overseas students in Australia, with the number of student visa holders from India increasing by 44.6% between June 2008 and June 2009.
The Migration Program planning figures for 2010–11 increased the skilled migration program by 5750 program places.
With the mass influx of economic migrant students attracted to many Australian universities, rental accommodation has dried up and rents have skyrocketed. Again this favours the comparatively more wealthy economic migrant students over domestic students and indigenous Australians. The locally poorer are displaced.
Then the developers have moved in and cashed in on the massive student accommodation boom and destroyed surrounding suburbs in the process. Look at new tacky shoebox highrise that has taken over Randwick and Kingsford around the University of NSW! Look at Carlton around the University of Melbourne, or Hawthorn around Swinburne or Clayton and Mount Waverley around Monash University!
Residents in these suburbs have seen their suburban amenity destroyed by the migrant putsch!
The Department of Immigration ignores the social costs
Aside from the millions in export revenue making successive Australian governments balance of trade figures look good economically, what social and moral justification could there possible be for favouring migrant students to take up tertiary places over domestic students?
Successive Lib/Lab Australian governments have granted tens of thousands of permanent visas to these migrant students to stay in Australia and obtain Australian jobs. What social and moral justification could there possible be for favouring migrant students with these new Australian qualifications to take up employment places over domestic students?
The federal Study in Australia web site "aims to promote the Australian education and training industry to the world by providing free impartial advice on the benefits of studying in Australia."
The Australian Government has a dedicated department to encourage migrant students Australian Education International. This is where Labor's so called 'education revolution is taking place!
The Australian Immigration Department and Citizenship offers what it calls a 'Professional Development Visa (Subclass 470) and Occupational Trainee Visa (Subclass 442) to encourage migrant students here.
The Department of Immigration ignores the social costs. ...'We only process the Visas, after that, what happens is not our problem.'
Student Visas simply backdoor immigration rorting
A whole industry of migration agencies has been set up. There have been many shonky institutions and private colleges allowed set up simply to target migrants to Australia via the student visa backdoor. They run 'bogus courses, take cash for certificates, demand bribes to upgrade marks and employ unqualified teachers.'
According to one account in Victoria in 2009:
"In May this year I reported that senior officials from government departments told me, on the condition of anonymity, that widespread rackets among private training colleges were ‘‘out of control’’. One said networks linking unscrupulous colleges, migration agents, education agents and businesses indicated the involvement of organised crime. They said Canberra was turning a blind eye to protect the dollars coming in.
[Source: 'Millions trump truth about dodgy schools', by Sushi Das, The Age, 29th July 2009]
In late 2009, the Rudd Labor Government was forced to assist 4000 odd migrant students affected by the closure of 12 dodgy education providers which had gone broke. How many millions did that cost the Australian taxpayer? What's changed to prevent more dodgy migrant student businesses setting up down under?
This is not an issue of Australia's humanitarian commitment to people fleeing persecution in their home country. This has nothing to do whatsoever with asylum seekers. This is the Lib/Lab electioneering distraction, and the Lib/Lab media are lapping it up.
The core Australian social issue is the problem of economic migrants displacing Australian domestic students from educational opportunities, and consequently from employment, from housing, from the Australian fair go. Invasive immigration is destroying our once celebrated 'classless' society.
What social and moral justification could there possible be for migrant students with these new Australian qualifications denying their skills back in their home country to help their home country prosper? By remaining in Australia and taking Australian jobs, foreign students are selfishly thinking not of their country of origin, nor their host country, but of themselves. They are parasitically enriching themselves on the back of Australia offering itself as a generous educational host nation.
Once again Australia prostitutes its attractiveness for cash.
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