in focus 28 june 2010
National Monday Update Issue:
Interesting times...
Since the events of Wednesday evening, almost every conversation I have had with MPs, Senators, government officials and ACPET members has opened with the observation “interesting times”, a sentiment echoed across the country.
Just a week ago, few people could have imagined the historic events of the past 7 days and that Australia would be pondering the appointment of our first female Prime Minister by week’s end. In sending our congratulations and best wishes to Julia Gillard on her ascension to the position of PM, ACPET has also taken the opportunity to once again highlight the parlous state of our international education industry and the great uncertainty that characterises the operating environment for all private providers of education and training.
While there has been much analysis of why and how of the events of the past week unfolded, the education and training sector is holding its breath waiting to see who will be rewarded with the task of leading the sector through these tumultuous times. As always in these times, rumours and theories abound. Will DEEWR have two Ministers with separate responsibilities, one for Education and Training and the other for Employment and IR? Will the Department itself be slit so soon after being formed or will the steady hand of an experienced Minister be preferred to lead this mega-portfolio?
In other areas, questions have been raised about the tenure of the Immigration Minister whose recent policy leadership has wrought havoc on our once strong reputation overseas as a desired destination for overseas students. Issues of quality, safety and residency have been largely resolved yet we find that prospective students continue to turn their back on Australia in increasing numbers as a result of ongoing uncertainty and poor change management by Government.
While the answers to these and other questions will be resolved in the coming weeks, ACPET has continued its strong advocacy on these issues and during this week we added many more federal politicians to the list of these who have received individual briefings on the economic and social impact of the continued decline of what was once our third largest export industry.
ACPET took the initiative to respond to significant interest from the Senate in our analysis of the impact of government policy on the forward trends of student visa applications and the economic consequences. It is clear to us that this has been widely circulated, read and discussed with a common view emerging that:
- government action in seeking to redress problems has gone too far
- government action is not consistent with student satisfaction analysis
- migration interventions with student visas has been blunt, has not considered options including financial guarantees by financial institutions
- migration interventions have not provided timelines to enable effective communication and implementation
A brief report on these meeting can be found in the international section of this week’s NMU
I would like to take this opportunity to thank those members who made up the 500+ respondents to our Private Sector Survey in recent weeks, the results of this survey will provide valuable information on our sector’s significant contribution to training in Australia. Results will be released to all participants as soon as they become available in the coming weeks.
Please do not hesitate to contact me (Andrew [dot] Smith [at] acpet [dot] edu [dot] au (click to email )Andrew [dot] Smith [at] acpet [dot] edu [dot] au (Andrew Smith)) to discuss any of the above or to provide your ideas and input into the ongoing development of the Council.