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tion is necessary. In order to secure an international stuThe emergence of the student safety issue necesdent visa, applicants are required to provide evidence sarily injected new emotional heat into discussion of that they have at least the funds to cover return air international education in Australia. Stories of cowardly fares to Australia, course fees and (importantly) living assaults on innocent young people are inevitably more costs, which the Department of Immigration and Citigripping and visceral than Bob Birrell’s statistics or a zenship (DIAC,) currently nominates as $12,000 per seminar on intercultural pedagogy, and they served to year (DIAC, 2009). Students with spouse and dependmove international education from the specialist to ent children are required to produce evidence of addithe mainstream media in very short time. tional financial resources. While accusations of denial and cover-up may well In recognition (presumably) that living costs can be warranted in certain cases, the problem for this vary between locations and that some additional writer is the extent to which such emotive language income may be necessary or desirable, international can be employed to reinforce a stereotypical view of students are permitted to undertake part-time work, the international education sector, with mandatory but only to a maximum of twenty hours per week. ‘goodies’ and ‘baddies’. In the earliest days of postThose working in excess of the maximum are liable for Colombo Plan international education, it was not unuvisa cancellation, but this can be a challenging area in sual for critics, especially at the progressive end of which to enforce complithe spectrum, to caricature ance. And, obviously, those foreign students as overThe emergence of the student safety breaching visa conditions indulged rich kids sent to issue necessarily injected new emotional are unlikely to lodge formal Australia by parents who heat into discussion of international complaints against exploithad probably made their education in Australia. Stories of cowardly ative employers. fortunes through corrupt assaults on innocent young people are DIAC stresses that the practices or worse. The inevitably more gripping and visceral than $12,000 should not be seen international student’s red Bob Birrell’s statistics or a seminar on as necessarily indicative Porsche in the car park was of the true cost of living, contrasted with the batintercultural pedagogy, and they served which raises the question tered brown Toyota into to move international education from the of what the figure reprewhich the exhausted lecspecialist to the mainstream media in very sents, especially given that turer crawled after a hard short time. it is not indexed and has day at the chalk face. remained unchanged since Inevitably, as interna2001. Leaving that aside, it seems reasonable to contional numbers grew, this parody was unsustainable, clude that a student who genuinely has access to the especially for anyone who spent more than ten minprescribed $12,000 and is able to secure twenty hours utes on the ground. Stories of incredible sacrifice by of casual work, should be able to get by. If this is not family to fund a son or (more rarely) a daughter were so, then potential students are being misled (Rodan, much more the norm than conspicuous consumption 2009a). They are also at risk of being misinformed, on by affluent students. Often, the conspicuous consumpliving costs and other relevant issues such as safety, by tion and international lifestyle of university leaders the uneven quality of Australian university web sites, made a more legitimate target for academic critics, and Some are very good, but others are incomplete at best the international student now assumed the status of and deceptive at worst (Rodan, 2009b). victim, with Nyland’s critique echoing student activThere is a growing acknowledgement that the ist views that institutions were treating them as ‘cash $12,000 requirement is being circumvented. It is cows’, taking their money but providing inadequate simply the case that many desperate applicants are value in teaching and or support services, and misleadable to provide ‘evidence’ of the funds at time of appliing them about certain realities of life and study in Auscation, but do not retain access once in Australia. The tralia (Nyland, 2008). production of bogus bank documents appears well One of those realities relates to a need for casual within the skills set of various agents (Hodge, 2009). work, but if students were as financially resourced as The Victorian Government taskforce on the overseas they should be, the need for such work should not be student experience (DIIRD, 2008), included in its excessive. In this context, some background informavol. 51, no. 2, 2009
The international student as student, migrant and victim, Paul Rodan
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