The Impacts of COVID-19 on International Student Welfare: Government Policy and How to Improve it

Professor Gaby Ramia¹, Dr Emma Mitchell, Dr Catherine Hastings, Professor  Alan Morris, Associate Professor Shaun Wilson

¹The University Of Sydney, , Australia

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Australian government consciously omitted international students from the financial assistance it offered permanent residents. This presentation examines international student welfare as a policy question before and during the pandemic. It also makes recommendations for post-pandemic policy reform. The presentation draws on two surveys of international students, 7,000 in total, living in the private rental sector in Sydney and Melbourne. One survey was conducted prior to the pandemic, and one during the pandemic. We also report on 45 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with international students, conducted in the second half of 2020. We argue that the pandemic exacerbated a pre-existing absence of policy on welfare, rather than constituting a fresh abandonment of international students. Since the Dawkins higher education changes in the early 1990s, international students have been officially treated in policy as education consumers, and not as ‘social citizens’. This has rendered them especially vulnerable to socio-economic shocks like COVID-19. The central implications for policy reform are covered in the presentation. We conclude that, in order to avoid disproportionate welfare diminutions in future crises, the government needs to foster greater alignment between the treatment of international and domestic students in policy formation.

Biography:
Gaby Ramia is Professor of Policy and Society in the Department of Government and International Relations, School of Social and Political Sciences at The University of Sydney. Gaby’s research is in public and social policy and governance, particularly in relation to work, employment, education and welfare.