Tag Archives: University

Stressed out, dropping out: COVID has taken its toll on uni students

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Susan Harris Rimmer, Griffith University; Kate McGuire, Griffith University, and Neeraj Gill, Griffith University

It’s a tough time to be a university student. Amid a global pandemic, overstretched mental health services and sweeping university staff cuts, students have had to attend classes and hand in assignments while juggling work, family and finances. For international students, isolation, cultural differences and extra expenses added to their worries.

Unsurprisingly, university enrolments have plummeted. While COVID-19 has taken a toll on everyone’s mental health – Beyond Blue reported a 66% increase in demand for its services in April compared to 2019 – it’s a massive concern for many young people. Yet tertiary students have been largely overlooked.



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To counter the looming mental health crisis and improve student retention, federal and state governments must respond to the needs of these students beyond spouting platitudes and advising them to exercise, drink water and think positively.

Under pressure before the pandemic

Here are the facts: about 60% of university students are aged between 15 and 24. Suicide is the leading cause of death in this age group. One in four young people experience depression or anxiety in any one year.

The average wait time for a first therapy session at a Headspace centre – a government-funded youth mental health program – is 25.5 days. Many don’t reach out at all because of the stigma surrounding mental health, privacy concerns, lack of time and financial constraints.



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And 2020 made life harder

Then COVID-19 struck.

This pandemic has increased youth unemployment, added to academic stress and made it harder for students to follow self-care routines – the daily habits that are vital to good mental health and well-being. More students than ever are at risk and the mental health system might not be able to cope.



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After COVID-19 restrictions took effect, the unemployment rate of students aged 15-24 who study full-time increased by up to 12% in June compared to 2019. Their participation rate – the proportion employed or actively looking for work – fell by 21% in May compared to 2019.

Financial pressures associated with job losses can increase the risk of mental health problems. Particularly at risk are international students who were excluded from JobSeeker and JobKeeper payments and isolated from their families and support networks. International students may also face challenges seeking assistance due to stigma, language and cultural barriers and financial issues.



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COVID-19 increases risk to international students’ mental health. Australia urgently needs to step up

Challenges increased at uni too

Students have also had to adapt to online learning. Many universities still haven’t gone back to in-person classes. Online videos replaced lecture halls, despite students being told pre-COVID that attending in-person lectures was vital, with lower attendance linked to poorer results.

Some universities did adopt measures to help minimise the impact of COVID on student grades. Even so, the sweeping staff cuts at several universities will have impacts on learning outcomes.



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Academic success is harder to achieve than ever and the stakes are high, especially when you might be paying thousands of dollars per course. Bad grades reduce your future employability and repeating courses affects when you graduate.

Stay active, eat healthily and reach out when you need help is the traditional mental health advice doled out to first-year students. But in 2020, when the gyms closed and you couldn’t go out with your friends, it wasn’t that simple.

Isolated young woman staring out of window
Enforced social isolation made it hard for many students to follow the routines that maintain good mental health.
Adam Nieścioruk/Unsplash

Most universities do offer some mental health support services. However, these vary between institutions and were already overstretched before the pandemic. While a new framework released by youth mental health research centre Orygen is a promising start, it is yet to be implemented.

The support available to students can be overly reliant on self-help methods or involve long wait times. During COVID, many of these services have gone online, which raises concerns about efficacy and privacy.

Domestic students are eligible for a government-subsidised mental health plan, but the public system faces many of the same issues as university services. International students must pay the full cost.

With the challenges 2020 has thrown at students, it’s no surprise tertiary enrolments fell. Enrolments for 20-to-24-year-olds were down by 66,100 students from 2019. The loss of fee revenue has already undermined the university sector.

The implications for gender equity are also serious, as those who dropped out were overwhelmingly women.



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We can do more to help

So it is a tough time to be a university student, but does it have to be? Solutions have already been proposed. In June, a Productivity Commission inquiry report called for:

  • expanded online mental health services for tertiary students

  • increased data collection

  • greater support for international students

  • legislative amendments requiring all tertiary institutions to have a student mental health and well-being strategy.

In September, the Australian Human Rights Commission recommended:

  • more investment in youth-focused mental health services

  • more government support for educational institutions to deliver quality online learning

  • making youth employment a key focus of the economic recovery.

Other measures such as psychological support services on campus, university-run guidance programs, greater flexibility regarding workloads and reassurance that students won’t be discriminated against due to mental illness would also help.

If the government were to adopt any of these suggestions it would be a step in the right direction. However, despite the dire consequences of mishandling this issue, it remains to be seen whether the government will step up and support universities and the mental health of students.The Conversation

Susan Harris Rimmer, Professor and Director of the Policy Innovation Hub, Griffith Business School, Griffith University; Kate McGuire, Research Assistant, Griffith University, and Neeraj Gill, Associate Professor and Clinical Lead, Mental Health, Griffith University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

4 out of 5 international students are still in Australia – how we treat them will have consequences

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International students in Australia are actively comparing their situation during the pandemic with their peers in other countries.
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Angela Lehmann, Australian National University and Aasha Sriram, University of Melbourne

COVID-19 has not stopped international education. As of August 24, 524,000 international students were living among us in Australian cities and communities. They represent 78% of all student visa holders, according to data the Department of Home Affairs provided to us.

These students are potential ambassadors for Australia and our institutions. They could help shape our country’s reputation as a safe and welcoming destination in the post-pandemic world – but only if we look after them.

Pie chart and table showing numbers of international students in Australia and offshore

Data as of August 24 2020 provided by Department of Home Affairs, Author provided

The numbers of students now in Australia vary across sectors. Currently, 73% of our international higher education students and 78% of postgraduate research students are here. The vast majority — 78% — of our international secondary school students are still here too.

The percentage is even higher for vocational education and training (VET): 91% of the sector’s international students are here, 159,233 in all.

Non-award programs (shorter courses that don’t lead to a degree or diploma) and English language programs (ELICOS) have the largest percentages of students now offshore.

Table showing numbers and percentages of student visa holders still in Australia

Data provided by Department of Home Affairs at authors’ request, Author provided

The experiences these large numbers of students are having now will have a direct impact on their decisions and patterns of mobility once borders reopen.

However, institutions and government agencies continue to focus on outward-looking approaches to recovery, such as offshore recruitment and delivery, negotiating pilot safety corridors, and scenario planning for the reopening of borders. The onshore response to international education risks being severely neglected.



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Students are comparing countries’ responses

International students in Australian cities and communities are of course talking about their situation. They are using social media, creating blogs and interacting constantly with families and friends back home and around the world.

During the pandemic, this peer-to-peer form of marketing is heightened in its global reach. Our students are constantly comparing their lives with students in both their home countries and Australia’s major competitor destinations.

As a result, the crisis of international student social support is the subject of global comparisons. Students and their families are weighing up what they are going through “here” compared to what others are going through “there”.



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A life transformed in Melbourne

Arya is a full-time postgraduate student from India who is staying in Melbourne. We spoke with Arya as a part of a series of interviews with international students during COVID-19.

Her dream of studying in Australia was made possible through a combination of a student loan, borrowing from family, and savings after working for two years as a journalist. Prior to COVID-19, she relied on part-time jobs to support herself. This income was essential to her financial survival in Melbourne.

The first lockdown meant she lost both her jobs — one in hospitality and one at her university. As these sectors are struggling in this crisis, her prospect of finding a new job is bleak.

Arya is not eligible for federal government support such as JobSeeker. But she might be able to get Victorian government support, including a voucher to buy groceries and a one-off payment of A$1,100. She can also apply for a modest grant from her university to cover some bills.

She has struggled to pay rent, but the moratorium on evictions has prevented her from becoming homeless. Her university and local community groups in Melbourne have also provided food hampers.

Arya’s goal was to study in Australia at a world-class institution and solidify her status within the upwardly mobile middle classes in India. Her life has been transformed into a struggle to eat, pay rent and avoid homelessness while keeping her grades up. Arya observes:

It is becoming more than an education. The question is shifting to how students live and survive in a global city midst a pandemic.



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It’s even harder in the US

Arya is in contact with friends and fellow Indian students studying overseas. While her situation in Melbourne is dire, her friends in the US are struggling every day. Arya introduced us to Dhanya.

Dhanya, who moved to New York in 2017 to study, says she is struggling “despite doing everything right”. After recently graduating and finding a job, Dhanya lost her H1B sponsored visa for skilled workers as a result of the Trump administration’s recent freeze on visas. “The US government has not considered that we can’t get home,” Dhanya says.

She reports that she and many of her friends in similar situations have been told they can choose to work as unpaid interns.

Many American states enacted a patchwork of temporary eviction moratoriums and the federal government issued a partial ban on evictions. These moratoriums have now largely expired, forcing students to rely on the discretion of landlords. As a non-citizen, Dhanya cannot receive unemployment benefits or a stimulus cheque.

Dhanya is unaware of any non-monetary support from her university or the government for international students. There are no free meal plans, grocery vouchers, or community-based food schemes.

Despite our Melbourne-based student living with the daily anxiety about her finances, she is comparing her experience relatively positively to her friends in the US.

Some countries are enhancing reputations

Students are paying attention to countries that are including international students and temporary migrants in their social policy response to COVID-19. Arya says:

The way countries handle this now is definitely going to impact how students see your country as a destination in the future.

Arya and her friends are keeping a keen eye on European destinations such as Germany and Sweden. They have also been impressed by Canada’s timely support for international students during this crisis.



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Coronavirus: how likely are international university students to choose Australia over the UK, US and Canada?

It is not enough for Australia to rely on other nations doing badly on social welfare and support. We need to do more than aim to receive a comparatively “good” score on poverty, exploitation and vulnerability based on others doing worse.

Australia urgently needs to actively reshape international education market perceptions by demonstrating that we offer not only world-class education, but also world-class student support. And that starts with helping the cohort of more than half-a-million international students who currently call Australia home.The Conversation

Angela Lehmann, Honorary Lecturer, College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian National University and Aasha Sriram, Research Assistant, Melbourne Social Equity Institute, University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Coronavirus: how likely are international university students to choose Australia over the UK, US and Canada?

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Gavin Moodie, RMIT University

Australian universities are suffering revenue and job losses due to the current and projected loss of international students. A Mitchell Institute report has estimated the sector may lose up to A$19 billion in the next three years, while modelling from Universities Australia shows more than 20,000 jobs are at risk over six months, and more after that.

On April 3, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said international students in Australia could return home if they could not support themselves. Commentators feared such a flippant attitude would cause Australia to lose its world class reputation if it didn’t come to the aid of international students.

Months of tension with China (the biggest source of Australian university international students, at a third of the total) threatened to further jeopardise our international standing.

On Monday, the Australian government announced it will restart granting international student visas and allow current students to count online study while overseas in a push to restart international education.

But how do we compare with some of Australia’s largest competitors?

Closed campuses

Australia imposed a ban on travel from China on February 1, stranding an estimated 87,000 students abroad who were due to start their academic year in Australia in March.

By that time it was the middle of the second, or winter, semester for Australia’s big English language competitors in the northern hemisphere: the USA, UK and Canada. Most of these countries’ international students stayed to complete their semester, so universities did not suffer an immediate fall in revenue.

But universities in these countries did incur substantial additional costs as many completed the semester by transferring teaching online at short notice.



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While online education meets similar standards to campus-based education, students prefer face-to-face learning. This is particularly true for international students, who see immersion in a different culture as one of the main benefits of studying overseas.

In May, many US and UK universities announced bullish plans to teach their first semester in autumn, starting in September, face-to-face (or mask-to-mask). There were various provisions for plexiglass, physical distancing, masks and regular testing.

But even partial campus reopening plans were never credible in the US when they were announced. Still, many universities in the competitor countries sought to maximise international enrolments by maintaining at least a substantial part of their campuses would be open by September.

The US

US universities no longer seem to be nearly as strong competitors for international students. While the number of new COVID-19 cases has bumpily fallen in Australia, Canada and the UK, they have been increasing in the US.

When it became clear US universities could not responsibly open their campuses, they started reversing their announcements of opening fully in September.

Princeton University. It’s unlikely many US universities will be able to offer full on-campus education in their first autumn semester.
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By July 20 some 53% of 1,215 US universities surveyed still planned to teach in person in September, 11% planned online education, 32% planned a mix of online and in person education, and 4% were considering a range of scenarios or had not yet decided their education mode.

US President Donald Trump sought to pressure universities to open fully by making studying at least partly on campus a condition of international students’ visas. He soon reversed that order, but may issue an alternative seeking the same effect.

US attractiveness as an international study destination is likely to be further reduced by the instability in universities’ plans, the uncertainty of federal immigration conditions, and continuing restrictions on entry from China and elsewhere.

The United Kingdom

Australian universities are in a much more similar position to UK universities, which are long time and powerful rivals for international students. They are expecting to lose substantially from COVID-19’s suppression of international enrolments.

Unlike Australia, the UK government has granted universities access to government-backed support such as a job retention scheme which includes short-term contracts, and business loan support.



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The UK government has also brought forward teaching payments and block research grants, and increased funds for students in financial difficulty.

Unlike Australia, the UK does not impose international travel restrictions but requires entrants from most countries including China and India to self-isolate for a fortnight after entry. It will therefore remain a more attractive destination for new students until Australia lifts or at least relaxes its travel restrictions.

Canada

Canadian universities and colleges have some distinct advantages over their competitors for international students. They enjoy considerable financial and other support from their national and provincial governments.

While Canada’s average proportion of new COVID-19 cases is similar to Australia’s and the UK’s, these are concentrated in the biggest cities of Toronto, Montreal and their environs. The Atlantic provinces have Tasmanian levels of COVID-19 cases, and some of their universities attract very high proportions of international students.

The University of Toronto. Canada’s universities have received more support from their government than Australia’s.
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Canada’s biggest competitive disadvantage is that while it will admit returning international students, it currently is not admitting new students for the foreseeable future.

The Canadian government will grant permits to international students who study online from abroad, and like Australia this will count towards their eligibility for a post-graduation work permit. The government has also introduced a temporary two-stage approval process for international students to expedite their approval to enter to study on campus when this is permitted.



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But Canada is not likely to be a desirable destination for new international students until the government and then institutions can give a firm timetable and clear plans for studying on campus.

So, what should Australia do?

To remain competitive compared to the UK, Australian universities should keep prospective students updated on the issues that affect their study decisions such as entry requirements, start dates, and study and accommodation conditions. This communication should be targeted towards education agents and their clients, and be specific to individual students.

Few students and their parents are convinced about the value and quality of online education. And they fear much of the benefit of immersion in an English speaking university environment would be lost if spatial distancing required social distancing.

Australian universities will have to be as clear as they can about the benefits of the study and living conditions students are likely to experience here.The Conversation

Gavin Moodie, Adjunct professor, RMIT University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Students in China heed their government’s warnings against studying in Australia – less than half plan to come back

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Marina Yue Zhang, Swinburne University of Technology

Only 40% of students in China who previously intended to study overseas still plan to, while just under 50% of those who had studied overseas plan to return to their study after the borders reopen.

These are results from our unpublished survey of 1,012 students we conducted in China between June 5 and 15. We asked them whether they would continue with their plan to study abroad post COVID-19.

These findings are not surprising. Due to growing tensions between China and the West – even before COVID-19 – middle-class parents in China had become increasingly concerned about the safety of, and possible discrimination against, their children abroad, including in the US and Australia.

The pandemic seems to have accelerated this trend.

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What students say about studying in Australia

Of the 1,012 students we surveyed, 404 had registered to study abroad in the next three years (in the US, UK, Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand and Singapore) and 608 had been studying overseas (including in Australia, US, UK, Canada, New Zealand and Japan) before COVID-19 .

In the questionnaire, we presented interviewees with considerations and asked them to nominate which ones would influence their decision about whether to study in Australia after COVID-19, as well as in other countries.



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The first group (group A) includes 304 students who had studied in Australia but who were not able to return due to travel restrictions.

Of these, 50% were undergraduates, 42% graduates, 5% doctoral students, and 3% vocational education or high school students.

The second group (group B) includes students who had never studied abroad before but had registered their intention to in the next three years, including in Australia, before COVID-19.

The second group also answered Australia-specific questions.

Not many students in either group considered issues such as more expensive air travel, less freedom in China and online lectures as critical factors influencing their decision to study in Australia.

But the two groups reacted to some factors quite differently. The students who had studied in Australia before considered the following factors as more critical to their decision:

  • returnees with Australian degrees are not more competitive in China’s job market compared to graduates from top-tier universities in China

  • life is more convenient, safe and easier at home and I don’t want to go abroad to endure the hardship as a foreign student

  • improved political stability and economic prospects in China

  • less of a chance of landing a good job with an Australian degree in China

  • no need to go abroad if lectures are delivered online.

The group of students who hadn’t yet studied in Australia but planned to, considered the following factors as critical:

  • media reported cases of Chinese being “discriminated against” or “abused” in Australia

  • deterioration in Sino-Australia relations

  • not many outstanding returnees from Australia are visible in the media to represent the success of Australian education

  • Australian universities lowered the entry standard for foreign students due to COVID-19

  • Australian degrees are perceived to be less valuable compared to degrees from other English-speaking countries, especially the US and the UK, by HR personnel in China.

What the students said

Not surprisingly, both groups considered the Chinese government’s warnings against visiting, or studying in, Australia important. A decision to study and live abroad is often made by the whole family in China. Official voices weigh significantly in such decisions.

A student who had done some of her master degree in a Melbourne university said:

After the Chinese New Year, Australian borders were closed to Chinese students due to COVID-19. Direct travel was not allowed. So I travelled to Thailand and spent 14 days in a small hotel in Bangkok before I landed in Melbourne. I had to be self-quarantined for 14 days in my rented room.

Then I found all lectures were moved online and the situation of COVID-19 became serious in Melbourne. The PM urged international students to go home. My parents were so worried. They paid for an over-priced air ticket and a quarantine-hotel in Shanghai for me for 14 days before I could go back to my hometown.

When the [Chinese] government announced the travel and study warnings, I couldn’t convince my parents that things aren’t that bad in Australia. They listened to the government and believed the ‘official voices’ rather than their own daughter.

There have been cases (though isolated ones) of Asians or Chinese people being bullied in Australia due to COVID-19. Unfortunately, social media in China often distorts such cases and amplifies the (mis)perceptions. And the tensions between China and Australia have enhanced these negative perceptions.

Sending their children abroad was once a privilege for elites with intellectual, economic or political power in China. But this is now quite common among middle-class Chinese families.

Chinese families spend a large amount of money on their children’s education. Better opportunities (either in the host country or on returning home) after study abroad is an underlining reason Chinese families invest in their children.



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Australia has attracted many Chinese students in recent decades. But if Chinese students with Australian degrees are less appreciated or less competitive compared to those who study in other countries or in local universities, families will look for other options.

A Chinese student who had been studying at a Sydney university told us:

We are the clients and the degrees are a commodity; we pay for our degrees. What if the commodity loses its value? The clients will surely walk away.

COVID-19 has had a negative impact on the number of Chinese students likely to study in Australia. But the downward trend started way before the pandemic.

Australian universities need to adjust their strategies for a future that will not only deliver value for Chinese students, but also strengthen a positive perception about this value.The Conversation

Marina Yue Zhang, Associate Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Swinburne University of Technology

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Coronavirus and university reforms put at risk Australia’s research gains of the last 15 years

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Andrew Norton, Australian National University

Education minister Dan Tehan will be meeting with university vice-chancellors to devise a new way of funding university research. They will have plenty to talk about.

Australia’s universities have been remarkably successful in building their research output. But there are cracks in the funding foundations of that success, which are being exposed by the revenue shock of COVID-19 and the minister’s reforms announced this month, which would pay for new student places with money currently spent on research.

I estimate the gap in funding that needs to be filled to maintain our current research output at around $4.7 billion.

The funding foundations crumble

The timing of Dan Tehan’s higher education reform package could not have been worse for the university research sector.

The vulnerability created by universities’ reliance on international students has been brutally revealed this year. Travel bans prevent international students arriving in Australia and the COVID-19 recession undermines their capacity to pay tuition fees.



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Profits from domestic and international students are the only way universities can finance research on the current scale, with more than A$12 billion spent in 2018.

Based on a Deloitte Access Economics analysis of teaching costs, universities make a surplus of about A$1.3 billion on domestic students. Universities use much of this surplus to fund research.

Tehan’s reform package seeks to align the total teaching funding rates for each Commonwealth supported student – the combined tuition subsidy and student contribution – with the teaching and scholarship costs identified in the Deloitte analysis.

On 2018 enrolment numbers, revenue losses for universities for Commonwealth supported students would total around $750 million with this realignment. With only teaching costs funded, universities will have little or no surplus from their teaching to spend on research.



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International student profits are larger than domestic – at around $4 billion. Much of this money is spent on research too, and much of this is at risk. The recession will also reduce how much industry partners and philanthropists can contribute to university research.

Australia’s Chief Scientist estimates 7,700 research jobs are at risk from COVID-19 factors alone. Unless the Commonwealth intervenes with a new research funding policy, its recent announcements will trigger further significant research job losses.

Combined teaching and research academic jobs will decline

Although less research employment will be available, the additional domestic students financed by redirecting research funding will generate teaching work.

More students is a good thing in itself, as the COVID-19 recession will generate more demand for higher education.

But this reallocation between research and teaching will exacerbate a major structural problem in the academic labour market. Although most academics want teaching and research, or research-only roles, over the last 30 years Commonwealth teaching and research funding has separated.

After the latest Tehan reforms, funding for the two activities will be based on entirely different criteria and put on very different growth trajectories.

An academic employment model that assumes the same people teach and research was kept alive by funding surpluses on domestic, and especially international, students. With both these surpluses being hit hard, the funding logic is that a trend towards more specialised academic staff will have to accelerate.

We can expect academic morale to fall and industrial action to rise as university workforces resist this change.



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The funding squeeze will also undermine the current system of Commonwealth research funding. This funding is allocated in two main ways. In part, it comes from competitive project grant funding, largely from the National Health and Medical Research Council and the Australian Research Council.

Academic prestige is attached to winning these grants, but the money allocated does not cover the project’s costs. Typically, universities pay the salaries of the lead researchers and general costs, such as laboratories and libraries.

Universities are partly compensated for those expenses through research block grants, which are awarded based on previous academic performance, including in winning competitive grants. But because block grants do not cover all competitive project grant costs, the system has relied on discretionary revenue, much of it from students, to work. It will need a major rethink if teaching becomes much less profitable.

The stakes are high

University spending on research (which was over $12 billion in 2018), has nearly tripled since 2000 in real terms.

Direct government spending on research increased this century, but not by nearly enough to finance this huge expansion in outlays. In 2018, the Commonwealth government’s main research funding programs contributed A$3.7 billion.

An additional $600 million came from other Commonwealth sources such as government department contracts for specific pieces of research.

In addition to this Commonwealth money, universities received another $1.9 billion in earmarked research funding from state, territory and other (national) governments, donations, and industry.

These research-specific sources still leave billions of dollars in research spending without a clear source of finance. Universities have investment earnings, profits on commercial operations and other revenue sources they can invest in research.

But these cannot possibly cover the estimated $4.7 billion gap between research revenue and spending.

With lower profits on teaching, this gap cannot be filled. Research spending will have to be reduced by billions of dollars.

We are at a turning point in Australian higher education. The research gains of the last fifteen years are at risk of being reversed. The minister’s meeting with vice-chancellors has very high stakes.The Conversation

Andrew Norton, Professor in the Practice of Higher Education Policy, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

How will the class of COVID-19 get into university? Using year 11 results is only part of the answer

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Jen Jackson, Victoria University and Sarah Pilcher, Victoria University

Several Australian universities (Australian National University, Swinburne and the University of Western Australia) have announced they will accept students based on their year 11 results.

The rationale is that the disrupted 2020 year will affect year 12 results. So, it’s fairer to use their results from last year.

It’s clear finishing school in the midst of a global pandemic is tough. Students are facing escalating pressure from learning online and loss of vital connections to peers, extended family and the community.

Rates of mental health issues and self-harm among Australian young people have risen over the last decade. Easing the pressures they face is a priority.

But universities accepting students based on year 11 scores is only a small response in a world experiencing enormous changes.

Is using year 11 results a good thing?

The Australian Tertiary Admissions Rank (ATAR) is a rank used by universities to select which students, out of high school, will be offered a place in a particular course. It represents the Holy Grail of school achievement for many Australian students and schools.

Its importance is reinforced by media reports of ATAR excellence each December. The decision to use year 11 results will likely be welcomed by many students concerned their ATAR is in jeopardy.

Some students have argued using year 11 results is unfair or flawed, as some students may have eased off in year 11 and planned to put in the extra effort to recover in year 12. But using year 11 results is unlikely to damage these students’ chances.

That’s because ATAR scores are strongly correlated with earlier school achievement, which means high achievers are unlikely to lose their position in the race.

Importantly, using year 11 results will go some way towards reducing the effects of the ‘”digital divide“ on student learning. Students with limited access to technology, or from less wealthy schools with fewer resources to cope with the sudden adaptation to online learning, will be further disadvantaged in the Class of 2020.



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One downside is the potential for confusion for students who have been assured by education minister Dan Tehan that they will still receive an ATAR in 2020, with appropriate adjustments.

It’s not yet clear what these adjustments will be, and state differences in senior secondary assessments complicate matters further.

What else do students need?

Even before COVID-19, only around one-quarter of students entered Australian universities based on their ATAR.

Universities already offer a range of other entry pathways including interviews, preparation tests, portfolios, recognition of knowledge from paid or voluntary work, or pathways through vocational education and training to gain credit for university entry.



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Don’t stress, your ATAR isn’t the final call. There are many ways to get into university

The post-COVID-19 tertiary education landscape will be a buyers’ market, as universities compete for students in a less globally mobile world.

Australian universities are experiencing massive drops in their numbers of international students. This means the university sector will be experiencing estimated losses of up to A$19 billion. A logical policy response would be to enable universities to open up access for domestic students to make up some of the shortfall.

So, the biggest question may be how to create fair entry pathways into tertiary education for the surge in participation the sector will need to survive – not how to cobble together fair ATAR scores for the relatively small proportion of university students who use it for an entry pathway.

Success at university does not depend on a high ATAR. This is especially so in courses like teaching and nursing where interpersonal skills and attitudes matter even more.

Calls to ditch the ATAR “straitjacket” and develop alternative assessments like learner profiles (student records that include academic and other learning) existed before COVID-19. Such calls are intensifying in the current environment.

This may be the perfect opportunity to rethink the ATAR as the main entry assessment for school leavers into university.

Not everyone goes to university

The preoccupation with ATAR scores ignores around half of school leavers who aren’t bound for university. Many of these students head to TAFE or other vocational education and training (VET) courses, which depend more on practical skills than academic achievement.

The COVID-19 crisis has reinforced the importance of practical, hands-on skills in the Australian economy. Many people in the occupations that have kept Australia going during the crisis – including nurses, aged care workers, early childhood educators and freight and logistics workers – have VET qualifications.

COVID-19 may have an even bigger impact on students in the Class of 2020 who prefer practical skills to academic subjects as students doing VET subjects are missing out on hands-on learning. Meanwhile, young aspiring apprentices are struggling to find work, as job adverts for new apprenticeships collapse.



Read more:
Trade apprentices will help our post COVID-19 recovery. We need to do more to keep them in work

Australia is notoriously bad at recognising the value of learning that does not lead to university. There is a risk these students will again be forgotten in the current focus on ATAR.

While university-bound students might begin to breathe a sigh of relief, many more are still waiting for solutions that keep their year 12 dreams alive.The Conversation

Jen Jackson, Education Policy Lead, Mitchell Institute, Victoria University and Sarah Pilcher, Policy Fellow, Mitchell Institute, Victoria University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Lecture recordings mean fewer students are turning up – does it matter?

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Natalie Skead, University of Western Australia; Fiona McGaughey, University of Western Australia; Kate Offer, University of Western Australia; Liam Elphick, University of Western Australia, and Murray Wesson, University of Western Australia

In 2017, a business lecturer posted a photo on LinkedIn showing a completely empty university classroom, 15 minutes after the class had been scheduled to start.

This is not an isolated incident. Anecdotally, lecture and tutorial attendance has been declining steadily in Australian universities and faculties for many years.

Declining attendance may affect students’ academic performance and their sense of connectedness. University doesn’t only teach content but develops attributes such as oral communication and interpersonal skills including teamwork.

Students are less likely to develop these skills if they don’t physically attend class.

We conducted a large-scale study in our law school to uncover whether lecture recordings are responsible for declining student attendance and what motivates students to attend or miss class.

By manually counting how many students were in lectures across sixteen different subjects, we found attendance rates averaged just 38% of total enrolments across the semester.

A Deakin University lecturer’s empty classroom 15 minutes after the class was due to start.
Adrian Raftery/LinkedIn

There was a natural ebb and flow of lecture attendance throughout the semester. There was peak attendance at the beginning (57%), a significant drop in the middle as assessments became due (26%) and a rebound at the end of semester as exam season hit (35%).

We also asked students to self-report their lecture attendance. The most common answer given, by far, was “almost all of the time” and 59% of students said they attended lectures the majority of the time.

Clearly there is a dissonance between this self-perception and reality.

Are recordings to blame?

Lecture recording is now common in Australian universities. Anecdotally, it’s often held responsible for declining attendance rates. But there is little research on the relationship between student attendance and lecture recording.

While lectures are usually recorded and available to students in streamed or downloadable format once the class ends, tutorials and other smaller classes are not usually recorded.



Read more:
Are lectures a good way to learn?

Our study found students aren’t ditching tutorials, seminars and workshops as much as they are lectures. Tutorials averaged a whopping 84% attendance rate. This could partly be explained by the fact teachers assess students on their participation in tutorials.

We also surveyed 900 students to find out their reasons for attending and not attending lectures, tutorials and workshops.

Availability of lecture recordings was the most common reason students gave for not attending lectures (18% of students said this). But work commitments were a close second (16%). Then it was timetable conflicts (12%), the time and day of lectures (11%) and assessments being due (8%).

Students lead complex lives

Universities provide students with lecture recordings for several reasons. These include giving students an alternative study tool and supporting students with disabilities or from non-English speaking backgrounds (who can slow down or pause recordings if necessary).

Our survey and focus groups showed students lead complex lives often balancing work, family and other commitments alongside their studies.

One student said:

[…] if some [lectures] are so early as 8am, that would involve waking up at 6am, which is difficult as I work in hospitality at night and if I’ve worked the night before I wouldn’t be getting to bed until after midnight.

I likely would be fatigued during that lecture and have difficulty concentrating and taking in the content, compared to if I watched the recording and took notes later that afternoon.

Other students said they relied on lecture recordings to enhance their learning. One said:

I find I get more out of the lecture by listening to it in my own time and at my own pace […] I prefer to be able to pause the recorded video to research more in-depth into cases and theories to add to my notes.

Some students with additional learning needs said the option not to attend class, and to access lecture recordings, was an important equity measure.

What should we do?

Lecture recordings bring important benefits for students. They can also be necessary for students with personal, work or health difficulties.

But recordings are clearly contributing to declining lecture attendance, too. We propose three possible paths forward for universities and teachers, each with their own advantages and disadvantages.

First, we can simply persist with the traditional model of recorded lectures. Teachers will need to accept attendance will likely be low and student learning, experience and wellness should instead be the focus of tutorials and other small group classes.

Second, we can introduce more active learning into lectures to encourage greater attendance. This could include small group exercises, in-class polling or role-plays.



Read more:
Let’s not abandon the humble lecture quite yet

But this would mean lecture recordings would be less useful for students. It would undercut the flexibility recordings offer and may cause equity concerns.

Third, we can change our teaching methodology to a “flipped” approach. This means the main way students would get information would be through online resources and activities. Face-to-face classes would then be dedicated to engaging students in deeper learning through collaborative activities.

Though this frees up lecture time for more effective learning, it would require appropriate support and training for teachers. Teachers, many of whom already work under significant time constraints, would need to invest more time and energy into their lessons.

Unfortunately there is not a one-size fits all answer to the conundrum of declining lecture attendance. But learning and teaching policies, such as mandatory lecture recording, should be informed by an evidence-based understanding of the likely consequences for staff and students.The Conversation

Natalie Skead, Professor, Dean of Law School, University of Western Australia; Fiona McGaughey, Senior Lecturer, Law School, University of Western Australia; Kate Offer, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Western Australia; Liam Elphick, Adjunct Research Fellow, Law School, University of Western Australia, and Murray Wesson, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Western Australia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Malaysia: Persecution News Update

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The link below is to an article reporting on persecution news from Malaysia, where a Christian name has led to a girl being rejected from university.

For more visit:
http://www.codewit.com/asia-pacific/9362-malaysia-christian-name-reason-to-reject-top-student

Unprecedented Appearance of Foreign Evangelist in Vietnam

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Luis Palau preaches at Protestant centennial in spite of government putting up obstacles to event.

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam, April 11 (CDN) — The first appearance by a U.S.-based evangelist preaching at a major event since the 1975 communist victory in Vietnam helped the country’s Protestants to celebrate their centennial last weekend after government officials gave last-minute approval.

In what seems to have become standard government procedure in Vietnam, permission requested months in advance was granted – at a venue several kilometers from the one organizers sought – just three hours before the first major celebration of the Centennial of Protestantism in Vietnam (1911-2011) at Thanh Long Stadium in Ho Chi Minh City on Saturday (April 9) was scheduled to begin. Argentine-born Luis Palau, who has preached in person to 28 million people in 72 countries, delivered the gospel
message.

A second night of celebration began at 7 p.m. on Sunday.

The venue change meant equipment staged in one part of the city had to be moved to the new location before it could be assembled, church leaders said. It also meant notifying many thousands of people invited to one venue about the change to the other, they said.

Given the lack of government cooperation, the leader of Vietnam’s Evangelical Fellowship (of house churches) said the fact that the event went ahead at all was “an absolute miracle.”

By word-of-mouth, Internet, Twitter, Facebook, and especially phone texting, thousands of people got word of the change as technicians and hundreds of volunteers made heroic efforts to ready the stadium. Vietnamese police proved surprisingly helpful in redirecting people from the original site to the new location.

At 9 p.m. – two hours after the schedule start – huge banners reading “PRAY FOR VIETNAM” and “GOD LOVES VIETNAM” were unfurled to welcome the Luis Palau Team and thousands of people to the festival, which joyfully combined the centennial celebration with Easter.

After opening prayers and welcome by Vietnamese leaders, Palau’s son Andrew Palau gave testimony to how God delivered him from alcoholism and drug addiction and called him to Christian service. An Intel Corp. vice-president also gave testimony to how God blessed his life and his business. Pastor-musician Don Moen, known for songs such as “Give Thanks,” “God is so Good,” and “God will Make a Way,” provided inspirational music followed by exuberant congregational singing.

Palau began his message at 11 p.m., delivering a concise and clear evangelistic sermon, and about 800 came forward as he invited people to receive Christ. It was after midnight before people began to depart for their homes.

The second celebration proceeded Sunday evening (April 10) in a more orderly and timely fashion. More than 12,000 people filled the seats and most of the chairs set up on the stadium field. In response to Palau’s second message, more than 1,000 people, according to one organizer, came forward in response to the call to follow Christ.

Photos and Vietnamese text on the events are readily available at http://www.hoithanh.com, and clips of the arrival of Palau and Moen in Vietnam may be found on YouTube. They were welcomed at Ho Chi Minh City’s Tan Son Nhut airport by hundreds of enthusiastic young people carrying banners and flowers.

Dr. Nguyen Xuan Duc, president of the Vietnam World Christian Fellowship, said he was very encouraged about the future of the church in Vietnam.

“These are watershed days for Protestantism in Vietnam,” he said. “There is no fear, but rather wonderful spontaneity and irrepressible joy. Events like this happen in spite of the government and without the blessing of some overly conservative church leaders. What we see is young, vibrant, lay-led, internationally connected and very media-savvy.”

While Moen, Palau and others spoke on Sunday night, also appearing in Ho Chi Minh City was iconic singer/songwriter Bob Dylan – whose performance sold only about half of the 8,000 seats at RMIT university.

A week before in Beijing, censors who reviewed Dylan’s song list allowed an unabashedly Christian song beginning, “Jesus said be ready for you know not the hour in which I come,” but did not allow “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” according to The Associated Press. Brad Adams of Human Rights Watch complained that, in an earlier day, Dylan – whose music contributed to opposition to the Vietnam War – would never have let a government tell him what to sing, according to the AP.  

Vietnamese organizers and the Palau team now travel north to Hanoi for similar events on Friday and Saturday (April 15-16). As yet there is no indication whether authorities there will be more accommodating than they were in Ho Chi Minh City.

Report from Compass Direct News
http://www.compassdirect.org