Universities ‘can live with’ Australian caps

Australian universities and colleges will be able to “live with” their international enrolment caps, which will not affect overseas students who have been offered places for next year, a parliamentary committee has heard.

The Department of Education said it was “actively monitoring” the number of places being issued and did not believe that the proposed caps – which are expected to be communicated to universities and colleges within days – had already been breached.

“We’re not currently worried about the patterns in provider behaviour that we’re seeing,” said the department’s deputy secretary, Ben Rimmer. “We’re confident that when providers receive their indicative limits, [they] will find it possible to live with within those limits.”

With a bill to authorise the caps before parliament, regulators, civil servants, analysts, vice-chancellors and other international education representatives were called before a Senate committee examining the legislation.

“I find the timing of this incredibly concerning,” said Australian Capital Territory senator David Pocock, a member of the committee. “It’s the 26th of August, and universities still don’t have their cap for the next year. We know how far down the road they are in terms of enrolments.”

Shadow education minister Sarah Henderson cited “deep concerns” about “deficiencies” in coordination between government agencies and “particularly the slowness of the data available through the Department of Education”. She said the department had “completely the wrong data” on enrolments at some universities, with its figures “out by many, many thousands”.

Mr Rimmer rejected this. “We’ve discovered that the university-entered, university-accountable data is not accurate, in some instances by some thousands of student records. That’s not on the department. That’s on the providers, who are under a legal obligation to provide accurate data.”

He said the Education Department would “manage the limit system” if the bill passed parliament. The department’s Provider Registration and International Student Management System, or Prisms, would “give providers very accurate and up-to-date information about where they are. We’ve received resources from government to achieve that outcome, and I’m confident that we’ll be able to do so.”

Australian National University policy analyst Andrew Norton said that for the caps to work as outlined in the legislation, the department would need to know “in real time” that individual students were enrolled and had been issued visas by the Department of Home Affairs.

“I’m not sure that the two departments’ systems are communicating well enough to know…when that happens. The Department of Home Affairs described the requirements as ‘significant development’ of their systems. To me, ‘significant development’ is a euphemism for ‘we’re not sure this could work at all’. The Department of Education’s enrolment data system was replaced about three years ago. It’s still not functioning properly, [and] we’ve got a few months left before this policy takes effect.”

Western Sydney University vice-chancellor George Williams said the legislation proposed 31 December 2024 as the date for determining next year’s caps. “That, of course, is completely unworkable,” he told the committee.

“[Imagine] we applied this to mining and said…‘We’re going to regulate how much you can export [and] if you export one ton extra, you lose your licence to engage in any business, and we’ll tell you the day before the new year, irrespective of what contracts you’ve entered into.’”

Professor Williams, a renowned constitutional lawyer, said the bill lacked “some of the most basic things you would expect to see in a piece of legislation of this kind”. It did not specify criteria by which the education minister should determine the caps, nor any process other than “the minister may consult”.

He said the bill omitted any reference to differential impacts on states, raising potential objections under Section 99 of Australia’s Constitution, which prevents the commonwealth from preferencing particular states.

“Even the possibility of parliamentary disallowance is removed, [eliminating] even that basic check and the ability of parliament to scrutinise,” Professor Williams said. “The concentration of power is surprising. It’s unfettered, coercive and…concentrated in a minister in a way that you would normally associate, in my experience, with a biosecurity act or a piece of national security legislation.

“You would not expect it in a piece of industry policy, particularly something directed at higher education. This is poorly drafted, not fit to be passed, and simply not adapted well to the problem that we’re facing.”

The committee is due to report on 6 September.

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com