Supporting overseas students
Overseas students studying at Australian Universities and TAFE colleges face a range of challenges in adapting to life and study in Australia. Education providers are required to have support strategies available to help overseas students overcome these challenges. Overseas students studying at Australian Universities and TAFE colleges face a range of challenges in adapting to life and study in Australia. Education providers are required to have support strategies available to help overseas students overcome these challenges.
Providers are also required to monitor overseas students’ academic performance, and identify and provide specific support to those overseas students who are at risk of being excluded for unsatisfactory academic progress (intervention strategy).
Providers have to take the time to understand the individual student’s specific challenges, and develop a tailored intervention strategy designed to address them.
Sometimes, however, investigations by this Office show providers taking a very generic approach of simply referring overseas students to the provider’s academic skills workshops or similar services, without any evidence to show that this is the kind or level of support the student needs. Often the only evidence the provider has is a ‘tick a box’ form showing that the student met with a staff member (tick), they were warned that they are at risk of unsatisfactory academic performance (tick), and they were referred to the generic support services (tick). There is no place to record, and therefore no record of, any conversation with the student exploring the challenges they are facing, and developing a tailored intervention strategy to overcome those challenges.
In cases like this, it is very difficult for this Office to be satisfied that the provider has met its obligations to support an overseas student at risk of being excluded, and/or being reported to the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP), for unsatisfactory academic progress.
As a result, in cases like this, this Office is likely to recommend to the provider that it not proceed with any unsatisfactory academic progress decisions, and/or with reporting the student to DIBP, and instead to start the intervention process again, by working together with the student to develop a tailored strategy.
Of course, as the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink. This Office does also see cases where the provider did everything it reasonably could to engage with the student to develop an intervention strategy, but the student would not engage, or did not follow the strategy that was developed. In these cases, this Office will support the provider’s unsatisfactory academic progress decisions and option of reporting to DIBP.