by ALEX BARTHEL

Student numbers are up but staffing is a problem in any language

There are grim prospects for the provision of academic language and learning services in higher education.

Student enrolments in general, have increased by 33 per cent over the past ten years and the number of international students has grown by 60 per cent.  However, academic language and learning staff declined 17 per cent in the decade.

So, the academic language and learning staff to student ratio has increased from an average 1:2400 ten years ago to 1:3900. Ten universities now have a ratio of more than 1:6600.

Restructures and redundancies have resulted in numerous academic language support staff (52 per cent in 2010) being reclassified as professional staff or “converted” to casual staff, with only 18 per cent retaining their academic status.

It is highly doubtful that universities will be able to recruit qualified academic language staff once international students, most needing language support, start returning to Australia.

Alex Barthel is a higher education consultant in academic language and learning. He spoke earlier this month at the 15th biennial conference of the Association for Academic Language and Learning