The common statement that foreign students are an export industry should be seriously questioned.

Normally the figure quoted is $13 billion to $15 billion, but in this article it has risen to $17 billion.

Such figure are more than likely a vast over-estimation.

“Perhaps on this account, the overseas education industry, including AEI and Universities Australia can be excused for treating the entire $13.7 billion for 2007–08, and $15 billion in
2008, as export revenue akin to the sale of wool or wheat. Yet it is well known that most
overseas students enter the Australian labour market and that the income they earn is used
to defray expenses here, including fees and to pay off loans taken in the home country.”

http://www.universityworldnews.com/filemgmt_data/files/ExportRevenue%5BFinal%5D.pdf

So the usual figures quoted are actually based on money spent by foreign students while in Australia, but how much of that money goes straight offshore?

Almost nothing is made in Australia, so if the student purchases something while in Australia from a car to a computer, then their money leaves the country in the form of imports.

If a tertiary student purchases textbooks or software for their studies, then there is about 100% guarantee that the textbooks and software will be imported, as almost no tertiary textbooks and software are being produced in Australia.

So it now depends on the money they spend on food, accommodation and of course their “fees”.

If the student works in Australia to pay for their food, accommodation and fees, then there is no great gain at all for Australia.

Added to this is the fact that the rest of the education system is a giant importer of everything from sporting equipment to photocopy paper, then the education system cannot claim that it is an export industry.

Indeed, it cost Australia dearly to run the current education system.

A person with this writer’s background is obviously going to complain about any Australian immigration changes that might interfere with back-door immigration and importation of people with poor English skills who have done basic courses of no use whatever to them or Australia. As the Indian Foreign Ministers said when he suggested that Indian students should give more care to where they go to study: students don’t need to go to Australia to learn how to cook or cut hair.

It is a good think that the Australian government has belatedly come to the same conclusion and has decided to look for skills that Australia might actually need, rather than merely enabling more unskilled foreigners to gain permanent residence and become a burden on Australia when there aren’t enough taxis left to drive.

It’s stiff cheese for the private ‘colleges’ going out of business or being in financial difficulties; they have been complicit with the government in a blatant immigration scam.

Senator Evans has made changes which represent the first and only sensible thing he has done in his portfolio. He has also taken a look at the lack of English skills of so-called skilled immigrants, and people like Ms. Wesa Chau have already been asking for ‘special consideration’ and changes to the changes, and the very sensible requirement that people who try to get into our service industry should at least be able to speak and understand our language.

Chau admits that tightening up on immigration scams “might be great domestic politics”; too right it is! It’s about time Australian politicians started taking notice of the actual Australians who employ them, and their concerns on the inappropriate and unnecessary immigration of people we don’t not need.

The Minister has not used a “sledgehammer”; it only seems that way because he and the Rudd government, and the previous government, have been far too weak and lenient in the past.

Immigration of all kinds, apart from a dire need for Australia (no such need presently exists) or for proven and dire humanitarian reasons should cease altogether

It is of course great domestic politics to close down the rort. It should never have started. Anyone in on the rort should have known it could not last forever, the secret would get out, there'd be an outcry and it would have to stop.

Now what would make great sense domestically would be to make it easier for domestic students to study, rather than making it harder and selling off uni places to the highest bidders overseas.

For example, pay independent student allowances on an entitlement basis to any student enrolling in full time tertiary study at degree level, regardless of how long they've ever had a job or whatever for. Also allow the student to receive all their texts and defer the cost to HECS or otherwise give the student free books. End the cartel of book suppliers charging students massive prices for books because we don't have parallel import permits or because the faculty designates Australian-published texts.

The current system simply allows foreign students and the rich to dominate our universities because anything to do with money eg books, enrolment fees or whatever while only a small inconvenience to a student subsidised by a rich family is a huge barrier for a poor student perhaps also without family support to study and who cannot live at home.

Maybe we can reduce that shameful waste of our young people's futures that is caused by unemployment by turning more of them to something useful, rather than the progeny of rich foreigners who use uni degrees (still on the approved list) as a backdoor means to gain residency.

The whole issue of allowing entry for qualifications such as hairdressers and cooks was a bit dubious to start with.

As the incentive got rorted and less than 30% with the new qualification were choosing to work in that profession once they had PR, it was clear to all that it had to stop.

That some students have lost their free pass, perhaps they deserve some compensation, but the colleges built on a dodgy premise have no place in reality and should go.

It's a bit sad ,really., removing Cooking and Hairdressing off the list. I have been patiently awaiting to see a Subcontinet Male Hardresser at my local Shopping Centre.. and now it looks like I never will.

I suppose that this list also explained why there never was a College that specialised in producing Taxi Drivers. That ,obviously ,was because there were plenty of under employed Australians willing to drive the things !

Leave a Loophole and it WILL be exploited, if there is money to be made from it.

"A person with this writer’s background is obviously going to complain about any Australian immigration changes"

A perfect example of playing the man and not the ball.

"Almost nothing is made in Australia, so if the student purchases something while in Australia from a car to a computer, then their money leaves the country in the form of imports."

Oh dear, oh dear....