Page 56 - EW July 2022

likely that fee increases next year will continue to be sig-
nificant as inflationary pressures make themselves felt,”
she adds.
A Birmingham City spokesman said its international
postgraduate fees “reflect the costs of delivering our cours-
es, specific services required to ensure the best support pos-
sible for our overseas students, and the continual improve-
ment of our academic offer”. Meanwhile, London Met said it
had introduced “generous scholarship packages” for eligible
students, which means that in “real terms, the cost of our
courses has only increased very slightly for most”.
AUSTRALIA
Nepalese inflow boom

NEPAL’S EMERGENCE AS AUSTRALIA’S biggest Nepalese students Down Under: disguised labour fears
source of offshore students has fanned fears that
the visa programme has been subverted into an welcomes the growing numbers of Nepalese higher educa-
“unsponsored work permits” scheme. Immigration expert tion visas but says the “very high” grant rate for private VET
Abul Rizvi says ballooning numbers of successful student applicants is “not sustainable in the long term”.
visa applications from the Himalayan nation suggest that Times Higher Education asked the Department of Home
lax rules may be luring migrant workers Down Under on Affairs, which administers student visas, why Nepal’s grant
study pretexts. rate had changed so dramatically and whether appropriate
This could trigger an explosion in labour hire fraud and scrutiny was being made. A spokesperson said all applica-
the exploitation of foreign workers caught in “immigration tions were “considered on an individual basis”.
limbo” because they lack the credentials to qualify for per-
manent residency. Meanwhile, Australia could “lose higher- ASIA
performing students to other nations because of the trashed Myopia epidemic
reputation of our international education industry,” warns
Dr. Rizvi in Independent Australia. He blames the former DUCATION IS NOT ALWAYS AN UNALLOYED
government’s suspension of caps on international students’ good. Over the past few decades, East Asia has seen
working hours. “We are now seen as desperate to attract Ea stunning rise in the incidence of myopia, aka short-
students more interested in work rights than the quality of sightedness. And a growing pile of evidence suggests that
education,” warns Rizvi. the main underlying reason for this is education — specifi-
In March and April, the latest months for which statis- cally, the fact that children spend large parts of the day in
tics are available, Nepal generated more than 1,000 more comparatively dimly lit classrooms.
applications for visas to study in Australia than China, the Before the long economic booms that began in the 1960s,
traditional top source market, which has almost 50 times myopia was uncommon in East Asia. These days, among the
Nepal’s population, and some 3,000 more than its other gi- young, it is ubiquitous. In Hong Kong, Singapore and Taipei
ant neighbour, India, which is normally Australia’s second more than 80 percent of school-leavers are short-sighted.
largest market. In Seoul, over nine in ten young men are. China, which be-
Nepal is also experiencing a much higher “grant rate” — gan its economic rise later, is catching up. Data from as far
the proportion of visa applications decided in applicants’ afield as Guangzhou in the south and Inner Mongolia in
favour — than it has for the past decade. The rate has soared the north show myopia rates among young people of about
to 92 percent this financial year after hovering well below 80 percent.
80 percent. By comparison, grant rates for India and Paki- The West is not immune. Good data is harder to come
stan stand at 78 percent and 63 percent, respectively. by. But studies suggest rates of between 20-40 percent in
Like its subcontinental neighbours, Nepal is normally Europe, an order of magnitude higher than the natural state
considered a “high risk” country for non-genuine visa appli- of affairs. One study in California found a rate of 59 percent
cations. When its grant rate last climbed above 90 percent, among 17-19-year-olds.
in 2013-14, immigration officials subsequently unleashed The evidence suggests that regular exposure to bright
a mid-2015 crackdown that saw every second application daylight is vital in properly controlling the growth of chil-
rejected. dren’s eyes. Too little light leads to elongated, short-sighted
Sydney-based education agent Ravi Lochan Singh says eyes. Researchers believe this explains why rates are so high
visa statistics have been skewed by a processing backlog. He in Asia, where a strong cultural emphasis on the value of

JULY 2022 EDUCATIONWORLD 55