In the last 20 years the international student population studying in Australia has more than tripled to a total of 567,505 students as of January 2024. Here at the University of Sydney it has been an entire century since the first international student enrolled. Now, its sandstone buildings thrive on their tuition checks with foreign students representing 44% of the total student population.
Education is Australia’s top five largest export earner, with international education worth $36.4 billion to the nation’s economy. For Australian universities, international students,, as huge revenue generators,play an unofficial role in filling the growing funding gap created by the reduction in government spending on its public education sector. With Australia’s public investment into the tertiary sector being among the lowest in the OECD, inevitably our universities have become overwhelmingly reliant on international student fee income.
Reasons for pursuing overseas studies differ between students; however, a common theme emerges: the hyper-competitive university admissions in their home countries. The largest shares of foreign students at the university were found to be from China, India, and Nepal — the former two of which are the world’s most populous countries, accounting for about 35.31% of the total global population. Competing for a position in their nation’s most prestigious universities is far from just an exam but rather an intensely pressurising life experience with millions of other students with the same goal.
The reality is: chances of getting into one of the top universities in their country is incredibly small. So they seek options which lie outside the borders of their home. Within these cultures where education, especially rankings, reigns supreme, extortionate fees, cultural chasms, and seismic shifts in education paradigms eclipses in comparison to the prospects of obtaining a degree from a world-class university.
Alluringly, there is this perfect equilibrium where the demand for revenue is met with the supply of international students. However, such a system is crisis prone and unsustainable in the long run. As international students become increasingly disenfranchised with the reducing support from the very people who opened their arms to them, we see tensions materialise not only economically but in our very classrooms.
Despite international students being a large demographic on our campus, they are vulnerable to being ostracised by their domestic counterparts. The biggest barrier — communication — continues to perpetuate such divide even a century later. A Chinese international student recounts to Honi the behind the scenes of achieving the required IELTS scores, explaining that the test, consisting of four components of speaking, listening, reading, and writing, can be quite difficult. In particular, the speaking component poses a tough challenge for most.
To overcome these difficulties, these students rightly take up tutoring, but most tutoring services provide prepared material that offer less so of a guidance and more so something to memorise. As a result, their score can sometimes not be an accurate indication of their English-speaking ability and to be able to keep learning, the University and our student cohort must do more to create an inclusive environment to allow them to.
The creation must begin from our classrooms. Frequently domestic students complain about international students who tend to turn inward and stay silent in most classes as it causes an inconvenience when it comes to group tasks.
Most international students find more comfort in socialising with people of their own culture and form their own community on campus for which they rely upon throughout their degree. Whilst this is perfectly understandable, it exists as a cushion as they move forward in a new world, which means they are less likely to interact with new people within class and in turn, disengage from group tasks. Another international student told Honi that it is quite anxiety-inducing talking to new people especially domestic students because of the fear they won’t be understood or they themselves won’t understand what they are saying. This becomes more difficult for those who do want to interact with new people but are held back by the comfort of their circle that just communicates in their own language. For instance another Chinese international admitted that in her tutorials her Chinese friends gather together and speak in Chinese which makes it harder for her to improve her English. It hence becomes more challenging to really step outside of their comfort zone.
Furthermore, it is often forgotten that these students have come from vastly different education systems. In most Asian education systems, classes are much bigger than your average 24 student classroom in Australia, reaching almost 50 or 60 which is indicative of its differing academic priorities. For instance, in India the academic approach is rote-learning and memorisation where students are expected to regurgitate textbook information in exams rather than applying critical thinking. More significantly, assessment methods are examination-focused and heavily weighted whereas in Australia students are used to diverse assessment methods such as assignments and group projects which reduce the emphasis of their eventual exams.
This suggests that some students not only experience discomfort when collaborating with peers but also face challenges as they adjust to this significant shift in their academic approaches.
It should then be the University’s responsibility to phase them in these new ways of learning and inform them of the learning expectations. This can be in the form of a mandatory Canvas course on group work expectations (which I believe all students may benefit from) or even workshops at the student centre to go through the different assessment styles the University usually issues. Such provisions may equip these students to feel more confident at the beginning of the semester rather than being suddenly exposed to it and having it be graded. The truth is many just have no idea what to expect and go into their first semesters with false conceptions of university in Australia and the learning standards.
However, as students become more ingrained in their routines and lifestyles it may be difficult to break them from this cycle of division. It is arguably too much to ask both international students and domestic students to make an effort to harmonise with each other, especially as individually, everyone has different priorities. It is then crucial for such harmonisation to begin from our classrooms. Unit coordinators should prioritise making sure tutors are being as engaging as possible rather than just “going through content”. It can look like randomising groups on day 1 and forcing them to learn and interact with each other to ready them for an upcoming group assignment or making classes more interactive in ways that ease students to speak up more.
As universities continue to open their arms to our international students, it becomes a growing concern if we just leave them to their own accords to conquer these barriers because it reduces education to a mere transaction for obtaining a degree. To resist further perpetuating this trend of commodifying the pursuit of knowledge, we need to create these environments that are more inclusive and engaging to allow students from all backgrounds to better learn, collaborate and grow together. It is only through this that we can actually uphold the integrity of the educational experience and prevent us, as students, from becoming jaded to our own potential.