Education Minister Jason Clare has responded to concerns over the new education services amendment legislation which sets a cap on universities enrolling international students.
The Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Quality and Integrity) Bill 2024 is intended to limit the enrolments of overseas students by provider, course or location, over a year.
The new legislation involves the introduction of multiple ministerial powers, including the ability of pausing the registration of new providers and new courses by registered providers.
The Bill has been referred for inquiry and report by August 15.
Mr Clare said since the COVID pandemic, international students have increased rapidly with some universities calling on the minister to institute a regulation.
The education minister said a similar issue was facing the UK and Canada, and it was important Australia maintained the “social license” on one of our top exports.
“Remember, this is the biggest export we don’t dig out of the ground,” he said.
“It’s worth $48 billion and if we set this up and regulate it the right way, it’ll help to make sure we can continue to have that sector grow over the long term.”
Mr Clare said it was about a 70-30 ratio of domestic students to international students “across the board”, while at some universities, such as University of Sydney it is higher, but “much lower” at others.
International education is an asset. It makes us money, it creates jobs here in the country, but it also does something else,” he said.
“It makes sure that if someone studies here in Australia, they go back home and if they love their experience in Australia they take that back home with them.
“In the world we live in, that’s really important.”
Mr Clare said the purpose of the new legislation was to “incentivise” more student housing and set limits for individual universities as there was simply not enough accomodation for all students.
“And if you build more housing, there’s only 78,000 student accomodation places in Australia at the moment, then we’ll allow you to have an increase in that cap,” he said.
When asked if he would like a decrease in the current level of 700,000 foreign students in Australia currently, Mr Clare said he would want to see it grow “sustainably over time”.
“It’s not about pulling out the meat axe,” he said.
