Group of 8

Group of Eight Chairman Gets Warned Off by Indian Academics. (March 8, 2006)

    Glyn Davis when he's not being Vice-Chancellor of Melbourne University or doing the household chores is Chairman of the Group of Eight.

The past couple of days he's been keeping the Prime Minister, John Howard, company on his visit to India following his advance man, US President George W Bush.

Professor Davis was there shopping for more Indian students to bolster up the coffers of Australian academe. The fact is that our universities have got the wind up because they've now well and truly got the message that growth of the overseas student market, on which universities had become so dependent for revenue, is slowing to a crawl. In 2005 commencements rose just 1% after the two previous years of 7% growth.

According to Centre for Independent Studies research fellow Andrew Norton, universities have perhaps a two-year breathing space before they feel the fiscal squeeze as international students take their business elsewhere. Then Norton believes that its "perfectly feasible" that a university would go broke.

John Ingleson, deputy vice chancellor, international, at the University of NSW says simply, "You can't have 14% -15% growth rates forever; it was always a fool's paradise."

To some the solution is simple, just eliminate the fee cap and let universities charge whatever fees are needed to get revenue to equal expenditure.

Of course so far no one has done any modelling to see just what the consequences might be for the university sector especially if you factor in the increasing resistance of India and China to have its students come to Australia rather than patronise there own expanding university sectors.

Professor Davis says that the Indians perceive Australian universities as aggressive marketers in Asian countries, "They are determined that relations will be on equal terms. They are determined Australia won't exploit them." If Australian universities want to develop partnerships in India, that's acceptable. India is looking to Australia for vocational educational training and also had a great interest in postgraduate training provided by Australia, especially in business, IT, engineering and the professions.

To what extent entrepreneurial foreign adventures by our universities would benefit Australian students as far as increasing the quality of university research and teaching with the aim of raising the quality of Australian life overall and per capita gross domestic product, while significantly working toward reducing the nation's current account deficit has yet to be explained.