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The Forum > Article Comments > Slaves to the system - do international students have rights? > Comments

Slaves to the system - do international students have rights? : Comments

By Wesa Chau, published 19/5/2010

Australia has a funny way of treating its honoured guests and trade lynchpin - international students.

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The reason why parents in developing nations sell their property and send the kids to Australia to get an education is the expectation that the will receive residency afterwards. This is the reason why the Australian tertiary education system has remained "competitive" with those of other nations despite relatively high prices for education and lack of spending on education by the government. Hopefully those times will soon be at an end and the only foreign students coming here will be those that actually want to take an education back to their country of origin.

It is true that the goverment needs to crack down on restaurants and other businesses paying less than the miniumum wage to students or any others. But we also need to ask why students came here with insufficient funds to support themselves. Of course, for the reason see above.

If Wesa Chau had migrated to mainland China from Hong Kong rathan than coming to Australia then she would know what real "slavery" is like and what it means to lack human rights! Most tertiary students - domestic and foreign - "struggle" with their incomes - it is almost a tradition. Another Australian student tradition is living in share houses (although crowding many people into one bedroom as happens in some places recently is obviously not conducive to study). All in all I detect a bit of "silver spoon" syndrome in these complaints.
Posted by michael_in_adelaide, Wednesday, 19 May 2010 10:02:00 AM
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If Yin is paying $280 a week in rent, then her expectations are definitely too high.

And so are yours Wesa.
Before starting up an argument about human rights, I would suggest that you look into the living standards, working conditions, and student visa conditions (especially those for employment and residency) for international students in the 'greatest country on earth', the USA.

There's a benchmark for you.
Posted by Bugsy, Wednesday, 19 May 2010 10:18:03 AM
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It is negligent that international students are treated like cash cows and with the ever-changing rules, it is difficult for students to have any security in their decision to study here however it is a voluntary choice and the rules and conditions are transparent.

We are in an era (despite all the political rhetoric about innovation research and merit) when education stopped being about quality but about quantity.

International education should not be a pathway to immigration necessarily. A student should have no more rights than a prospective immigrant waiting in the queues, unless of course there is a pre-existing understanding such as in a skills training program.

Unfortunately when education became a business venture, profit overrides any other consideration. Students are vulnerable to be cash cows because of that expectation of residency in many cases.

The industrial relations such as underpaying workers is illegal and there are mechanisms to complain.

While I understand the angst at the way some international students are treated by employers, remember paying students are not the same as guests or tourists. You are a consumer of a product which in this case is education.

Personally Australian universities would be better to set up in other countries - like China, Singapore, Malaysia, India. This would also ensure that it is not only the rich who can access quality education but talented students from poorer neighbourhoods who might be able to access scholarships. And where the increase in educational opportunities can benefit those nations directly.
Posted by pelican, Wednesday, 19 May 2010 10:23:20 AM
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International students should not get all the local student concessions. This would put them on a better footing than local unemployed folks who paid taxes through the times they worked.
Also if its unaffordable for them, they made a choice to come here, with the ultimate prize of Aussie PR as the goal of doing so.
Many locals struggle to study, with living costs, students can't work too much because they lose student benefits or concessions, many local students cannot get student assistance payments as they are not paid "on an entitlement basis to all full-time students" rather under onerous criteria designed to cut out most of them and discourage study except by the well-off whose parents have the willingness and means to finance it.
I haven't yet even started on the many local who would have, or still would, go to study but could not afford to live because our parents are either poor or unwilling (latter for me) to support us, who do you think would pay for our books etc?

We should be getting priority, and universities should have caps put on the numbers of international students they can accept so more places can be held for us and more support for very low SES students or incentives for very low SES students to embark on the financially perilous commitment of full-time study.
Posted by Inner-Sydney based transsexual, indigent outcast progeny of merchant family, Wednesday, 19 May 2010 11:35:37 AM
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There are some aspects to this which I find interesting.

1/ She knew the cost before she came.
2/ She and her parents also know the allowed hours for students to work.

I am amazed that these 'hard working parents' have as much money as that in China.. should I assume that the word on the street from every Chinese I know who comments is "You have to know someone..be rightly related or connected to get anywhere in China" ..is in fact true ?

Bear in mind.. if she is coming to Australia for study.. it is primarily a parental responsibility to fund the education of their children.

The other side of the coin is that limitations on how many hours students can work are very much tied to the job opportunity situation for citizens of Australia.

Surely they have a higher spot on the peck order of 'human rights' than some foreign student ?
Posted by ALGOREisRICH, Wednesday, 19 May 2010 4:42:56 PM
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In some Chinese dominated societies (e.g. Singapore) it is legislated that children must care for their parents in their old age. Unskilled parents will work very hard to put their children through university, not only, to support their children, but also as an investment. After graduation (except China, with its one child policy), the offspring are often set to all the main Western countries, to spread the investment.

Moreover, in the case of Australian universities and lower graded UK, US and Canadian universities, kids that didn't make into local universities say HKU or SMU, enrol into the cash strapped internationals, to implement paragraph one, above. The deans do deals which allow Asian delivered VET courses down to the equivalent to TAFE Certificate III to be given advance standing against undergraduate degrees. The Oz Government and the VCs know what is going on but do nothing.
Posted by Oliver, Wednesday, 19 May 2010 5:55:47 PM
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Please excuse my ignorance but how & why do students from countries with a supposedly lower currency than Australia come here to study ? Would not the lower currency take them a lot further in their own or ever lower currency countries ?
Or is it as Michael in Adelaide suspects that these students will be granted residency here.
it certainly makes more sense. I believe there is some agenda because why else would the australian education system lower it's standards for Australians but enhance it for potential migrants.
Posted by individual, Wednesday, 19 May 2010 7:54:18 PM
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Individual,

Not sure what you mean by lower currencies to the Aussie dollar? Many Asian currencies have appreciated against ours over the past few decades. Unless you are thinking that say because it takes say more Yen to buy a unit of Australian curreny. If so, it doesn't work that way. Back in 1966, ten shillings became one dollar. It could just easily been five shilings or a pound. In which case the relativities would now be different.
Posted by Oliver, Thursday, 20 May 2010 7:06:22 AM
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I am sorry...
Is this article arguing that because Australia sets conditions on student visas that are not the same as full working visas (ie that actual study, not full-time work be involved) that we are somehow in breach of our international obligations?
And that students who come to Australia on a student visa, and who know and accept that there is a limit of 20 hours of paid work under that scheme but who choose to break the visa conditions that they are here under (not to mention the tax fraud that is also taking place) are actually being discriminated against?
Now, I feel for some of these people and know some myself. I abhor any exploitation of them. But they come here as students, they know the rules, and the ones I know do it principally in the hope of landing that ever elusive PR. If they wish (or need) to break the rules, they take the risk.
Posted by J S Mill, Friday, 21 May 2010 5:57:50 PM
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