Attachment: CAPA Submission
The Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations is pleased to respond to the Inquiry into the Higher Education Legislation Amendment Bill (No.3) 2004. In this submission we limit our response to Subsection 16-20 (1) of the Bill, which seeks to add Melbourne University Private Limited (MUPL) to the list of Table B Providers under the Higher education Support Act 2003 (HESA), making it eligible to receive Commonwealth funding.
The main issues we wish to raise here concern: the interests of MUPL’s postgraduates; MUPL’s status as a university; MUPL’s ability to access Commonwealth funding in the form of grants and other funding, and Australia’s continued good reputation within the international higher education community.
Attachment: CAPA Submission
The Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations is pleased to contribute to the Review of the Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000. CAPA is the peak body representing Australia’s 247,315 postgraduate students, including its 76,877 international postgraduates.
Postgraduate student associations and committees at each of Australia’s public universities are affiliated to CAPA and contribute to CAPA policy at its Annual Council Meeting each year. International students are particularly active within CAPA, and tend to be the main cohort making use of facilities and services at postgraduate associations.
Recent CAPA research on international students includes a background paper on key issues affecting international postgraduates, Equity of Conditions for International Postgraduates Students (March 2004), available on the CAPA website, www.capa.edu.au, and included with this submission. CAPA also conducted a survey of international postgraduates conducted in October 2003. The results of the survey have not been released publicly due to the small sample size, however a brief overview is included as an appendix to this submission.
CAPA is also preparing a submission to the review of – Options for regulating migration agents overseas and the immigration related activities of education agents- being conducted by DIMIA. In our 2003 survey of international postgraduates, CAPA identified the problems with overseas education agents as one of the most pressing concerns faced by international students. While some matters concerning education agents will be presented in this submission, we will by addressing the problem primarily through our submission to DIMIA.
About this submission
Here, we focus on the first section of the Review Consultation Guide, ‘Quality Assurance’, commenting in particular on the National Code of Practice. We also comment very briefly on the section ‘Consumer protection’. We have not responded to the section ‘Migration policy’ as we are aware that other stakeholder groups who deal more directly with international students in crisis have responded in detail to this section.
In particular we refer the review panel to the submission of the Swinburne University Postgraduate Associations (SUPA). SUPA’s concerns are representative of problems faced by international students in respect of migration law and regulations. We also refer the review panel to the submission of the National Liaison Committee for International Students. Our paper, Equity of Conditions for International Postgraduates Students (March 2004), attached, may be of interest to the review panel in so far as it comments on aspects of the DIMIA assessment system, applicable to the section ‘Joined up government’.
