They all can’t manage COVID-19 by themselves

By Claire Field

Some of you will have seen  the news from Hobart of a man who recently tested positive for COVID-19 and was asked to self-isolate but did not do so for some days. Not only did he work at a hotel, he was also a student, studying at an international VET provider.

His case got me thinking about the community response if we were faced with a situation where an international student had the virus but also needed to work and ended up causing others to be infected and people died as a consequence.

Yes, that is alarmist – but you did not need to spend long on social media when the travel ban was put in place to see the hostility to international students in parts of the community.

It seems to me that institutions need to be thinking about the following questions for students (international or regional) who do not have strong social networks around them:

* are you monitoring students who are returning from overseas even if they are not arriving from high risk countries?

* are you encouraging all of your students to go for testing if they show symptoms and to follow instructions to self-isolate?

* if your students do need to self-isolate – what support are you able to provide in terms of financial hardship assistance, practical support i.e. grocery shopping/prescription filling, as well as making classes available online?

The Border Force Commissioner advises that 25,000 Chinese students have now arrived in Australia since the travel ban was imposed, by managing the quarantine period in another country. It will be interesting to see if the financial support being offered by various universities has made a difference in terms of the make-up of this student cohort.

Claire Field advises on VET, international education and private higher education