Harmonising immigration and higher education policies
Andrew Harvey, Sally Baker and Tebeje Molla
Congruent immigration and education policies are central to university equity. The need for greater harmony is clear in the treatment of students from refugee backgrounds, Māori and Pasifika students, permanent residents, and international students.
Discordant policies diminish opportunities for international students generally, as evidenced in the visa processes currently affecting university enrolment numbers. However, there are specific equity implications where immigration and education are misaligned. Students from refugee backgrounds, for example, are accepted into the country but their engagement in specific systems, such as education, is not monitored or evaluated, meaning they can fall through the gaps
Universities do not report ‘refugee-background’ as a category, and the only data available is from students self-identifying as having a permanent humanitarian visa. Institutional data do not show students who arrived as refugees and later became Australian citizens (potentially four years after arrival). This discrepancy is significant as a student may start a course as a refugee and complete it as an Australian citizen.
Despite poor sectoral data, Molla’s (2022) research highlights that, from 2001 to 2017, approximately 83% of refugees from African backgrounds either paused or discontinued their university studies. This group clearly faces challenges but identifying students with forced migration experience is complicated by issues with self-disclosure, changes in status (for example, through acquisition of citizenship), and ‘refugee-like’ experience. Immigration policy supports many refugees to arrive, but higher education policy provides them with little support or visibility.
Similarly, over 400,000 Māori and Pasifika people in Australia are invisibilised despite ABS data revealing very low university attainment rates, similar only to First Nations people. Many Māori and Pasifika people arrived in Australia under special category visas, which provide access to Commonwealth Supported Places but not income-contingent loans (HECS-HELP). While visa holders now need to wait only four years instead of ten to apply for citizenship, loan exclusion remains problematic. Permanent residents, of whom there are over a million, also have no access to HECS-HELP loans. For these groups, immigration policy is limiting university participation and success, and education policy is concealing the limitations.
Finally, international education policy has long lacked a student equity dimension. The number of displaced people is growing globally, and opportunities exist to enrol more refugees from displacement contexts via the new Refugee Student Settlement Pathway. More Australian university content could be made available to refugees via connected learning opportunities, and deeper Pacific partnerships could be built to improve educational opportunities and outcomes for students from refugee, refugee-like, and other forced migration backgrounds.
Harmonising immigration and education policies would improve both domestic and international student equity.
Professor Andrew Harvey, Academic Director (Equity and Diversity), Griffith University
Associate Professor Sally Baker, Migration and Education in the POLIS: Centre for Social Policy and Research at the ANU
Dr Tebeje Molla, ARC Future Fellow and Snr Lecturer, REDI/School of Education, Deakin University