The May 28 issue of Science is billed as a "special issue" in which it examines the question of "Brains and Boarders". Specifically it examines the current attraction to the United States of foreign students to determine whether or not the current heightened entry restrictions being enforced by the US is deleterious to the nation's "brain gain".

    The staff writer of the lead article in the series, Jeffrey Mervis, opens by citing  Robert Gates, a former CIA director and current president of Texas A&M University in College Station, who wrote in a March 31^st New York Times opinion piece, "Sadly, the unpredictability and delays that characterize the new system have resulted in a growing number of the world's brightest young people deciding to remain at home or go to other countries for their graduate education." Jeffrey concludes after his investigations (he was assisted by Ding Yimin in Beijing and Pallava Bagla in New Delhi) that to date Gates' assessment can't be substantiated.

    Of particular interest to Australians may be Jeffries' summery of the current state of foreign enrollments by Australian universities. "Science talked with dozens of U.S. academics and examined admissions data from their institutions. We probed attitudes in China and India, the two biggest sources of overseas talent. We looked at what's happening in Australia, widely held to be an increasingly popular destination for young scientists." He then follows up with "The number of Chinese graduate students in science and engineering (SE) entering Australian universities, for example, is actually declining," and then cites the DEST report showing a 16% rise in foreign student enrollment but then comments, "...a closer look at the numbers shows that assumption to be incorrect. ...the number of overseas students at Australian universities rose by 16% in 2003, to 136,000. But the rise comes after a 10% drop in 2002, which was preceded by a 20% jump the year before. Enrollment--overwhelmingly of undergraduates--is cyclical. An epidemic such as severe acute respiratory syndrome or an Asian economic crisis can constrict the annual flow one year just as a declining Australian dollar or the Olympic games can pump it up the next, explains Jennie Lang, director of international students at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), one of the country's biggest universities. (In fact, one-third of those overseas students don't even leave their country but attend branch campuses in their native land.)

    Michael Archer, UNSW's Dean of Science told Science "We can't add students unless we get more buildings and more lab space," And there's little money to attract international graduate students. Jennie Lang, UNSW director of international students says "They either bring their own money or pay their own way," and continues, "We offer them about 80 to 90 scholarships a year" out of a total doctoral pool of 1500 to 2000 students.

    Finally, Jeffries drops what should have been a bomb shell to the Australian Federal Government, "the number of Chinese doctoral students studying science and information technology in Australia is half what it was a decade ago, falling from an average of 230 in the 1990s to 108 in 2002. Engineering enrollment has also tumbled, from about 175 for most of the previous decade to 115 in 2002. The trends are scarcely better for the much smaller Indian contingent: There's been a slight rise in the number of science Ph.D. students starting in the latter half of the 1990s, from 27 in 1998 to 45 in 2002, while the number of engineering students has hovered at around 30."

It's also interesting to compare the total number of  SE students enrolled in doctoral programs between the US and Australia on a per capita basis. According to Science in 2003 Australia had enrolled 539 international SE students in doctoral programs while the US had about 45,500. Current population estimates indicate that the US has about 14.7 times the population of Australia so that on a per capita basis we ought to be attracting some 3,050 international SE doctoral students. According to the figures quoted by Science we attract about 18% of that. Even on a per capita GDP comparison we don't come off  too well. On that basis if we were "punching at our weight" we ought to be attracting about 2,260 international SE students into doctoral programs, instead we attract just under a quarter of that.

It is difficult to believe that the Coalition government seriously considers Australia's higher education and research sectors to be of consequence to the nation's well being when it puts forward programs such as Backing Australia's Future and Backing Australia's Ability 2. The view in FASTS "May 1997 Circular" is nearly as applicable today as it was seven years ago, except that higher education, citizenship education and vocational education each get a mention in this year's budget speech:

 

But with the release of supplementary papers, the real position of the Budget is becoming clear. "Steady as she sinks!" - Ian Lowe's description - might be more appropriate, particularly if one looks at the Forward Estimates.

Nothing the Treasurer said on Budget night indicates that the Government has accepted the role of S&T in solving major economic and environmental challenges facing Australia. Not once in his speech did he use the words "science", "technology", "education" or "innovation".

[FASTS Circular, May 1997]

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Alex Reisner

The Funneled Web