Regulation grows as international education enters ‘managed era’

International education is moving from the “market era” of intense growth to a “managed era” of rampant regulation, a Melbourne conference has heard.

Analyst Jon Chew said a structural change to the sector, occurring amid a worldwide shift from globalisation to “slowbalisation”, would be as profound as its 1980s conversion from post-war foreign aid schemes to booming export industries.

International enrolments had skyrocketed since then, fostered by policies that were “responsive to market dynamics”. Government interventions had been limited to “corrective” actions focused on achieving singular objectives.

All that had now changed, as governments were guided by “community sentiment” rather than the market. “We’re seeing layers upon layers of interventions happening at the same time,” Mr Chew told the Australian International Education Conference.

“Whether it’s housing, whether it’s integrity in providers, whether it’s migration and population growth, there are multiple objectives at work – quite often in the background.”

These changes had been widespread, reflecting a worldwide retreat from globalisation that had been partly driven by “fairly innocuous” factors. Globalisation was no longer delivering the spectacular savings it once had in things such as air travel, freight and international phone calls. Services, steadily replacing goods as the “primary source of economic growth”, were much more difficult to export than foodstuffs or manufactured products.

But “more concerning” trends had also fuelled a worldwide circling of the wagons. The influence of economic inequality, broken supply chains and geopolitical conflict were evident in declining foreign investment and burgeoning anti-migration sentiment.

“Rising nationalism, concern for inequality, geopolitical rivalry – this is the context for the next era,” said Mr Chew, chief insights officer with the Navitas education chain.

Mr Chew said the undercurrents were playing out in policies to vet students, constrain institutions and align international education settings with host countries’ labour market needs. Some nationalities were being excluded while others were prioritised.

All this was already happening, including policies advantaging certain nations. Australia has restricted working holiday visas to people with passports from 19 territories, exempted Indians from last year’s contraction of post-study work rights – to meet the terms of a pre-existing free trade agreement – and excluded Pacific Islanders from its proposed international student caps.

But overall, the “market era” would reduce opportunities for students. “At the country, the sector or the institutional level…there is going to be some curtailment of choice,” Mr Chew warned.

Institutions would need to work harder in helping students to “understand policy” and “deal with uncertainty”, he said.

Universities and colleges would also need to treat government relations as a “core business”, given that many drivers of student demand – such as visa availability, employment rules and migration opportunities – lay completely within government control.

Rather than just opposing policies, vice-chancellors and college bosses would need to offer solutions. “Reactive criticism…doesn’t give the government a lot to work with. We need to be proactively constructive.”

He said institutions with access to “lead data” – such as information about student enquiries, often harbingers of enrolment trends – would need to share it with government officials so that it could influence policy. Meanwhile, educators would need to be mindful of the “personal” toll of so much change.

“We’ve had a crazy few years, starting with the pandemic,” Mr Chew told the conference. “Don’t be too hard on yourselves. This is not targeted at you. Our sector is a product of the times.”

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com