Our new slaves: international students (1 Viewer)

[loquasagacious]

The cat is finally out of the bag. It will be hard for state and federal governments to deny that many unscrupulous and, perhaps, corrupt operators have hijacked a portion of the country's vocational education system and turned it into a mini organised-crime network.

An undercover co-operative network exists between some education agents, education providers, migration agents and small businesses, all making substantial profits by supplying false documentation for potential visa applicants.

When you combine this fact with the horror stories of mistreatment of many international students in this country, we all need to hang our heads in shame. How could this happen in a society that once took such pride in the standard of education we gave to our children, and then shared openly with the international community?

Cont....... Karl Konrad

There have been several articles on this issue recently, the above perhaps puts it best though. Through our migration/training system we have created a situation which has allowed, and indeed encouraged through poor regulation, the emergence of a slavery of sorts.

International students end up paying exorbiant amounts of money to come to Australia and complete qualifications from the Migrantion Occupations in Demand List (MODL). This is partly why there are so many international students studying accounting, accounting and otehr professional qualifications though are delivered by Universities and subject to relatively good regulation. Vocational occupations such as cooking and hairdressing however are delivered by a relatively unregulated VET industry.

As a result of poor regulation sub-standard Registered Training Organsations (RTOs) have been set up which to cater for the international student market and basically operate as visa mills. The RTO profits handsomely by charging for a premium service and providing a poor service. The limited regulations which do exist require work experience to complete the qualification and so employers access a pool of workers for below minimum wage. Both the RTO and employer have enormous leverage over the student by threatening deportation.

It's win-win for RTOs and employers but equates to gross exploitation of students. And is ultimately a loss for Australia through tarnishing of our image in the international marketplace and through the accepting of migrants who only meet our requirements on paper.

In my opinion it is a fundamentally flawed system which should be scrapped - but what to replace it with?

What are your thoughts? Or maybe you disagree with my conclusion?

 

[dcb4usmcfr]

educational budget deficits must be financed

it's not politically right to charge higher fees to australians

I really don't get how the unis like Syd U are still in deficit despite surge in international student number and fee

 

[loquasagacious]

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