Difficult issues for international education were raised at recent hearings of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade’s inquiry but it was a privilege to hear plenty of positives in a recent briefing by Toshi Kawaguchi, (Study NSW) and Juliet Kanyi (Austrade)
By CLAIRE FIELD
Juliet Kanyi spoke about the many and varied opportunities for Australian higher education and VET providers to recruit more students from Africa as well as the TNE possibilities that are available.
Toshi opened the briefing with an overview of the state of the sector in New South Wales and the focus of Study NSW on supporting international students – specifically;
* “a warm welcome when you arrive”
* “support for you to thrive” (including government funding for the Redfern Legal Centre to ensure students can access free legal advice, the International Student Health Hub and the International student sports program), and
* “career programmes for you to succeed” (including the NSW Jobs Connect for International Students, the upcoming Careers Expo and more).
To hear a leader in the sector express their obvious care and compassion for international students and for their agency to be providing such practical support was inspiring. More please … And it was also great to see providers being given such important insights into Africa. Congratulations to Study NSW and Austrade.
As if that were not inspiration enough during these difficult times for the sector – I was also pleased to speak in depth with Western Sydney University’s Prof Yi-Chen Lan on the latest episode of the ‘What now? What next?’ podcast about the university’s work educating refugees and displaced students from Myanmar, as well as offering English language tuition to teachers working in the refugee camps along the Thai-Myanmar border.
As Prof Lan observed “we need to think about how we give back to the global community” and with this example that’s clearly what WSU is looking to do.
Claire Field is a consultant and advisor to the tertiary education sector