Monash appears at Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Quality and Integrity) Bill 2024 [Provisions] public hearings

Following its submission to the Inquiry into the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Quality and Integrity) Bill 2024 [Provisions], Monash University Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Sharon Pickering has today appeared at the public hearings.

Professor Pickering provided the following remarks:

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Monash is deeply committed to the highest levels of integrity, quality and stability in international education – in fact our success depends upon it. However, the proposed Ministerial enrolment limits if enacted could destabilise Monash’s campuses, our teaching and learning and our world leading research.

Monash University was born and bred in the southeast suburbs of Melbourne. Many of our first students in 1961 were the children of migrants, and the first in their family to go to university.

About 10 per cent of the foundation cohort were from overseas, arriving from Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong. Today one in four of our domestic undergraduates are from under represented groups. International education is very human at Monash, it is core to who we are.

Monash has become Australia’s university of the Indo-Pacific, with campuses in Malaysia and Indonesia and presences in India and China – these could not have been established nor will they thrive without international education. They are critical for Australia’s influence in our region and are some of the greatest examples of Australian soft diplomacy.

International education income is also what ensures those one in four Australian students from underrepresented backgrounds enjoy success rates very similar to other students because of the academic and social support programs Monash invests in, it bridges the gap to cover the full cost of education and education infrastructure.

International education is what undergirds our Peninsula campus at Frankston – it is the engine room from which Monash supplies over half of Victoria’s health workforce.

International education is what supports the enormous shortfall in the funding of world class research in Australia.

Australia has become a preferred destination of clinical trials worldwide – 25 per cent of these are led by Monash servicing a population of some 3.2 million people.

Clinical trials are the gold standard treatment for many Australians facing cancer, heart disease, diabetes and even our youngest Australians in neonatal units:

  • This month a new treatment for lupus became available following global trials led by Monash – a disease where 50 per cent of sufferers end up with organ failure – often in the prime of life, 70 per cent women;
  • Monash is pioneering 3D bioprinted degradable meshes with stem cells for the treatment of pelvic organ prolapse, in the hope of providing a safe, effective solution for millions of women worldwide;

These kinds of breakthroughs require massive and stable long term investment; they are also what attracts global companies like Moderna to set up in Australia and ensure our sovereign capabilities for the future. They are what enables Australia to develop, attract and keep the very best talent in the world.

As our submission makes clear, we accept the need for national planning of overall international student numbers. But Part 7 of the Bill poses an unacceptable risk.

Our view, and as our submission details, is that a much better policy approach is to use the legislative mechanism of mission-based compacts to achieve its objectives without endangering Australia’s long-term national interests.