Announced Friday the strategy addresses Education Minister Alan Tudge’s big D – for diversification in markets, target segments in them, products and delivery but the Go8 has concerms

India and China will remain “valued partners in international education,” the paper states. However, “the government is committed to working with the sector to identify optimal strategies to diversify the student cohort.”

Plus “there may be an opportunity” to diversify student-mix at the “sector, institution, campus or location, field of education, course or classroom level.” And the government will “will grow and diversify Australia’s offshore and on-line delivery to international students,” including offering short-courses and microcredentials.

These and other proposals in the paper were previously floated by Mr Tudge, notably in a major speech at RMIT in March (CMM March 31). Which may be why peak bodies were brief in their responses Friday. Unless policy people are waiting on what the government will want them to do, when the enforcing review of relevant legislation is completed next year (scroll down).

Independent Tertiary Education Council Australia welcomed the strategy, saying depending on a small number of markets is “not sustainable” and that the new approach is critical for its members. “They have been walloped in the past eighteen months, (it) could not have come at a better time,” Chief Executive Troy Williams said.

Universities Australia “acknowledged the release” of the strategy, “as a step towards recovery.”

In contrast, the Group of Eight responded that it “is in a strong position to advance Australia’s international education.”

But, it has a bunch of buts about the government’s ideas.

For a start, “diversification of the market will take time in an increasingly competitive global environment”

And, “we must provide education and research in response to student demand as well as government policy”

Plus, “there is no strong evidence however to assume that international students will accept on-line study as a continued alternative to the on-campus experience.”