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International News

his prime”. “I’m still fit, still on top of it, still producing
research at the rate of a dozen good papers a year. There are
many other academics who continue to contribute into their
seventies and eighties,” he told Times Higher Education.
Oxford lost its case last March after a judge ruled it had
not shown the policy was a “proportionate means of achiev-
ing a legitimate aim”, partly because it lacked data on how
many vacancies had been created due to the EJRA in the
ten years it has operated.
Describing EJRA “immoral, illegal, unfair, uneconomic
and bad employment practice”, the letter claims it harms
the institution’s ability to attract world-class scholars, forc-
es senior academics to move elsewhere to continue their
research and causes stress and poor mental health for those
approaching the mandatory retirement age. Chinese students in Australia: reducing numbers

AUSTRALIA “the enduring diplomatic benefit of building constructive
China syndrome relationships” with some of the world’s brightest citizens,
notes Mark Scott, vice chancellor, University of Sydney,
THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL STUDENT FROM But there is a downside. Some universities have been
China, enrolled at the University of Sydney a cen- accused of suppressing criticism of China. Chinese student
tury ago. Now its sandstone buildings hum with spies are alleged to be snooping on campuses and intimidat-
foreign languages: almost half the university’s students are ing classmates. In 2019, scuffles broke out in several uni-
from overseas. “For Asian kids, we value the rankings a lot,” versities between Chinese nationalists and pro-democracy
says one of its Chinese students, who asks not to be named. campaigners. Universities have been subject to a “sustained
Australian universities perform well in them; the University campaign of intimidation, harassment, censorship and in-
of Sydney is one of nine ranked among the world’s Top 100 telligence gathering”, thundered a conservative senator,
institutions. Australia also has better weather than Britain James Paterson, last year.
or Canada, and less gun crime than America. When the stu- Partly as a result, universities are becoming just a bit
dent enrolled in 2015, it “seemed like one of the friendliest less dependent on China. Scandals over foreign interference
countries in the Western world”. were a big wake-up call, says Rory Medcalf of the Australian
Over the past two decades, the number of international National University. Vice chancellors are now wooing new
students in Australia has risen nearly fourfold, to 440,000 markets. Sydney University is taking record numbers from
in 2019. Its universities now attract more foreign talent Malaysia and Vietnam. Since 2018, the number of Indians
than those of any country except America and Britain. Edu- studying down under has risen by a third. Chinese students
cation is Australia’s fourth-biggest export, worth around 3 now represent 33 percent of the foreign cohort, down from
percent of GDP. This has made its universities dependent a peak of 38 percent.
on the higher fees foreigners pay — a worry when Australia Continued geopolitical tensions are meanwhile leading
closed its borders in 2020 and again later that year when a to more scrutiny of university research and partnerships.
trade war erupted with China, which supplies about a third Foreign-interference laws passed by the former Conserva-
of incomers. Yet most of the universities have managed tive government require universities to inform security
these shocks fairly easily. And in 2023, foreign students agencies about “arrangements” with “foreign entities”.
have returned in droves, with 425,000 now in Australia. When, in 2019, Monash University signed a partnership
Universities were largely unaffected by the trade spat. with the state-owned Commercial Aircraft Corporation of
While slapping curbs on Australia’s exports from wine to China to develop aviation technology, there was an outcry.
coal, China didn’t deter its citizens from attending the coun- A parliamentary review in 2022 called for it to be cancelled,
try’s universities. When the pandemic struck, Chinese stu- as the work could have military applications.
dents were also more willing than others to stick with online A more heated debate over security on campuses is brew-
learning, notes Peter Varghese, chancellor of the University ing. Through AUKUS, a trilateral security pact, America and
of Queensland. Britain will share nuclear-propulsion technology with Aus-
Public investment in Australian tertiary education is tralia. The pact will also lead to collaborations on emerg-
among the lowest in the OECD. This makes the universities ing technologies such as artificial intelligence and quan-
especially reliant on the revenue foreign students provide, tum computing. Australian officials say this will make the
including A$41 billion (Rs.2.28 lakh crore) in fees and other country’s universities a bigger target for espionage. The
spending in the year to September. There is also value in Labor government led by Anthony Albanese has drafted

68 EDUCATIONWORLD JANUARY 2024