International students return to Deakin

THE reopening of Australia’s international borders has helped reverse the pandemic driven loss of overseas students at Deakin University, John Molony, Pro Vice-Chancellor International said.

“We’re now 30 per cent up on this time last year, it’s pleasing that we’re back in a growth position, but we’re still a long way behind where we were in 2019,” he said.

“It’s going to take a long time to get back to there.”

More than 4500 international students were enrolled across the university’s Geelong and Waurn Ponds campuses in 2019, around 3300 of those were new students.

By 2021, the number of new enrolments had dropped to around 1000, with many of them online.

Australia reopened its border to overseas students and skilled migrants on December 15 last year and last Monday double vaccinated tourists were also welcomed back into the country. Mr Molony said about a third of students with visas had returned since the borders reopened in December.

“It’s continued since then, but has been dampened with the spread of Omicron, a shortage of flights,” he said.

“Coupled with that was ATAGI [Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation] recognising foreign vaccines, like China and India’s vaccine.

“They were good for China and India of course, but those vaccines are used in Southeast Asia so it opened that market right up for us.”

Mr Molony said the university is yet to see the large-scale return of students from one important nation, China, where a Zero-COVID policy remains in place.”The zero-transmission policy in China has seen a situation where we have seen students returning from India and other key source countries, but not really China, due to restrictions and lack of flights.”

For over two years prospective foreign students have effectively been banned from face-to-face learning in Australia due to border closures, forcing them to look for study options in other relative countries like Britain or America, “who all remained largely open”, said Mr Molony.

“It was frustrating for the market because they could see that the north was open, but Australia wasn’t … it just put us behind our competitors, but we are winning them back.”

Deakin students and staff are required to provide evidence of full vaccination prior to attending campus this year.

“While it will not be the same as 2019, our goal is to deliver as normal an experience as we can, subject to the COVID-19 mitigations that we are all living with in our communities,” said Deakin Vice-Chancellor Professor Iain Martin.

“We are looking forward to seeing our campuses regain their vibrancy with students returning for many face-to-face classes, seminars and hands-on learning activities,” Prof. Martin said.

“This will mean a significant increase in on-campus activity, with many students and staff helping to bring our campuses back to life.”