Hill emphasized the importance of the international student sector to Australia’s prosperity but expressed concerns about a minority of students using student visas for work rather than study.
Hill emphasized the importance of the international student sector to Australia’s prosperity but expressed concerns about a minority of students using student visas for work rather than study.
Australian Labor MP Julian Hill has proposed significant reforms to address the exploitation of Australia’s vocational education system by poor-quality educators. Hill, a former executive director of international education in the Victorian government, believes that radical measures are necessary to clean up the sector.
During a parliamentary session on Monday, Hill emphasized the importance of the international student sector to Australia’s prosperity but expressed concerns about a minority of students using student visas for work rather than study. He argued that Australia’s future success depends on the restoration of quality education, which has been compromised due to neglect over the past decade.
“The vast majority of the sector do wonderful things but a minority of students – mainly in the bottom end of private VET – are only here to work not study,” he said. “Our student visa must not be used as a low-rent work visa.”
Hill outlined four reform options, which he referred to as “nuclear” in private conversations. These options include overhauling the accreditation framework for private vocational education and training providers to separate training from assessment, requiring providers to reapply for licenses, suspending enrollments in low-value courses, and banning the payment of commissions to education agents for onshore students.
The MP criticized the current system, stating that the Australian Skills Quality Authority primarily relies on paperwork inspections as a proxy for quality, allowing dishonest providers to exploit the system. Hill suggested that raising the standards for becoming an assessment provider and introducing external assessments for higher-risk private VET providers would effectively weed out substandard institutions.
Hill also expressed concern about international students enrolling in courses with non-vocational outcomes, such as marketing, leadership, and business. He questioned the benefit Australia gains from thousands of international students pursuing such courses, as they offer limited migration pathways and result in a large number of students focusing on work rather than studies.
The parliamentary inquiry has uncovered allegations of education agents acting as intermediaries and engaging in unethical practices. These agents allegedly receive hefty commissions to enroll students in courses and direct them to lower-quality private providers once they arrive in Australia. Hill described these agents as “rapacious” and called for a complete ban on commission payments for onshore students to eliminate their influence.
Hill acknowledged the challenges associated with regulating agents but emphasized the need to address the issue to protect the integrity of the education sector. He suggested that parliament should consider banning commission payments as a way to eliminate these intermediaries. Overall, Hill’s proposed reforms aim to restore the social license of the sector and ensure that international students receive a quality education in Australia.
