Here is another article I found from Factiva.com which was publish by The Australian 9 September 2006. It was written by Kate de Brito.
It is a short article, but it has much information about what the important initial things that international students should do at the first time of their entrance to Australian universities environment. Have a look and hope you get a big picture of studying in Australia!
Preparation is everything, writes Kate de Brito
INTERNATIONAL students in Australia benefit from a vast learning environment and a range of new cultural experiences. But lack of preparation means some struggle unnecessarily with everything from getting around a strange city on public transport to speaking up in class.
Betty Chow, associate director of International Student Services at UNSW, says even experienced students need to equip themselves with as much information as possible before starting their studies, including reading material forwarded by their institution. "You'd be surprised how many students don't read the information," Chow says.
She encourages students to arrive early to orient themselves with their new environment and attend all orientation services to learn about local transport and the university. "People often think because they've studied before they don't need to attend orientation, but orientation is different for every university," she says.
Most universities now have dedicated services for international students to provide information on the cost of courses, living expenses and accommodation advice.
Major institutions also offer language support for students lacking confidence in English, and some offer intensive pre-course English programs that begin just prior to the academic year.
Eric Pang, national convenor of the International Students Association, says students need to be sure before applying that they've chosen the right course. "Spend a lot of time researching the course you want to do, whether it will be recognised in your home country and whether it will help you getting a job," Pang says.
Education agents can help streamline the process of applying and organising overseas study. But these agents are not regulated by the Government so check they are authorised to work with the institutions you are applying to and that they are offering realistic advice about courses. "Students need to be careful if using an education agent they are getting what they paid for," Pang says. "Some less reliable agents market courses to overseas students without providing complete information about increasing costs, the quality of the lecturers or whether the course will meet requirements for later employment."
Students should also ask questions about libraries and study facilities, access to computers, laboratories and research facilities.
Bob Birrell, head of the Centre for Population and Urban Research at Monash, says students should brush up on how proposed changes to Australia's skilled migration program may affect their studies. Changes to come into force in 2007 will require higher English competency from students and more extensive vocational training.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Learning journey - POSTGRAD HIGHER EDUCATION SPECIAL REPORT
Don’t be Ashamed to be Stupid
The title above was stated by one of my lecturers in the first class. The lecturer said that as the lecturer saw that all of the students are international student. The lecturer wanted to encourage us as the international students to express freely our opinions or ask questions in class without be ashamed. It because a person that asking questions tend to be seen by other people as a stupid person. Therefore, sometimes students especially the international ones, rarely ask question or state their opinion in class.
As an international student, I understand the situation above because sometimes I had that experience, too. International students may have several obstacles that may hinder them to be active in class. Language barriers may become the big obstacles for international students to be active in class, especially for those who speak other languages beside English as their mother-tongue. Occasionally, it is hard for us to state our thoughts in the correct English to make our lecturer and our classmates understand what we are talking about. Thus, when we have that kind of problems several times, we feel that it is better to be quiet and ask our classmates who may be more understand.
The experience of previous education environments may also impede international students to express their thoughts. I could said I was raised in the culture in where the education environment was different to Australian education environment. In my case, the environment was built to make students only listen and write and teachers are the one who speak in class. It was since in the kindergarten up to the university. I could say that that kind of education environment likely happens in most Asian countries. Therefore, as we tend to be get used with that situation, when we enter a new environment, such as Australian education environment, we may need much time to adapt given the fact that we already have a different education environment for a quite long time.
However, at a point in time, as we involve and engage in class, those obstacles can be solved. One thing that needs to be kept in mind for international students is that we are learning in the new environment. We are not the only one who has those kind of situations. So, don't be afraid to state our opinions!
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Campus Critical
This article is found in : http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Campus-critical/2005/05/06/1115092690378.html#.
Although it is a quite long article, but it discussed about teaching quality, plagiarism and marking criteria which can give more understanding about study in Australia. Enjoy!
The privatisation of learning has come at a huge cost, write Debra Jopson and Kelly Burke.
THE LIFT smells of beer - not surprising, since its first stop is a big city bar boasting pool tables and an aquarium. On the fourth floor, the Eureka flag, transformed into a university logo, hangs over a swanky reception desk fronting a suite of computer-filled rooms. Welcome to the University of Ballarat's Liverpool Street campus in Sydney.
It wasn't what Aman Malik expected when he decided to study at an Australian university. The 22-year-old Indian, with a bachelor of business from Maharashi Dayanand University, Haryana, picked Ballarat for his two-year, $24,000 master of information technology course because it looked good on the internet. But the reality of studying above the barn-like Shark Hotel in an office-block campus with just a few books to hand was a disappointment.
"I chose Ballarat University because it's in the centre of the city. I never knew it was such a small branch of a university. I thought it would be like a big university in a big building with facilities like a gym and swimming pools and playing grounds," he says. "The university should not be so close to the bar. It should not be in a hotel, at least."
One in five Australian university students is foreign. Eight out-of-town universities have versions of the Shark Hotel campus in office blocks in the Sydney CBD - housing more than 7500 fee-paying students from overseas. International student leaders say we should treat these students well - they are the saviours of our tertiary education system.
Most of Australia's 37 public universities have been forced to seek fee-paying foreign students since the great campus crunch of nine years ago, when the Federal Government began to slash their funding.
It has been a move onto shaky ground. The cuts and the Government's push to create entre-preneurial universities may threaten the survival of some universities, a Herald investigation has found.
"We are now reliant in dollar terms on that international student income. If that does not continue at least at the levels it's at now, then there will be a financial crisis in the Australian university sector," says Gerard Sutton, vice-president of the Australian Vice-Chancellors Committee.
The reduced funding and the influx of foreign students are driving down the standard of education at some universities. In some cases, entry requirements have been lowered, courses have been made easier and marking has been softened to help overseas students cope with language problems. Meanwhile, there is overcrowding in lectures and tutorials because student-staff ratios have soared.
Standards are suffering in many ways.
TEACHING QUALITY
Student-staff ratios continue to rise, leading to drops in the quality of teaching. The number of students to every university teacher soared from about 14 in 1993 to 21 in 2003, according to the vice-chancellors' committee. This state was the second-worst, after Queensland, according to the NSW Auditor-General, with more than 26 students per teacher.
Resources are so stretched that some tutorials - meant to be about small-group learning - have grown to 60 students. Academics from the University of Western Sydney say they are under mounting pressure to cut face-to-face teaching hours after an $18 million shortfall in income in 2004 - due, in part, to static enrolments of international students. Multiple-choice and short-answer assessments are on the rise.
The university's senior management has dismissed the claims, saying there is no overall policy on academic consulting hours. But lecturers in some faculties say they have been told they "over-assess" their students and have been advised to spend no more than one hour per semester on marking, plus a maximum of 30 minutes of consultation, for each student.
At Sydney University, there were 48 students in a third-year nursing tutorial, where subjects included the mathematics required to measure medicine doses for patients, the university's Students Representative Council says.
An acting course at Charles Sturt University that once had three full-time teachers for 60 students now has one, according to the academics' union.
An engineering student at Newcastle University, Evan Walpole, attended tutorials holding as many as 50 students last semester.
THE LANGUAGE PROBLEM
Universities are struggling to deal with growing numbers of foreign students who often lack the English skills needed for their courses. International students claim they often do not get enough support. Their failure rate is 5 to 20 per cent higher than that of domestic students.
The University of Newcastle's international students' association has case studies of international students fighting to remain in the country after consistently failing subjects. One student has been at the university for five years, passing just one out of 24 subjects. Yet, contrary to the university's policies, these students have not been placed on an "at-risk" register, nor have they been offered counselling and access to additional support services.
The university's pro-vice-chancellor (international), Bill Purcell, admits some international students are falling through the cracks. "But students fail for all sorts of different reasons c not all problems are academic or to do with teaching."
Universities need $1.7 billion from foreign students every year to stay afloat.
China, the biggest market, is upgrading universities to keep students at home.
A fall in the number of full-fee-paying international students is already affecting some universities.
Federal funding will not grow to meet costs over the next three years.
Standards have been lowered to ensure income from fee-payers, many of whom have poor English.
Just over 10 years ago there was one university teacher for every 14 students. Now there is one for every 21 students.
A Macquarie University professor of economics, Peter Abelson, fails 40 per cent of students in his second-year course. "We have students who have failed the course four to five times. At least one student has failed it six times," he says. "It is an absurd situation."
Foreign students who get second-year entry to Macquarie after completing their first year with the Sydney Institute of Business and Technology (SIBT) - a private provider on campus - have a failure rate of 66 per cent.
Abelson says it is "a scandal" that the faculty's summer school takes in students who are getting less than 50 per cent in their courses. "The summer school has failure rates of 60 to 70 per cent. It's dishonest because we have allowed people into courses simply to take their money. In my view, we are close to trading fraudulently."
James Hazelton, an accounting lecturer at Macquarie, says: "As the entry criteria have become much more relaxed - and, in particular, many overseas students are admitted with poor English skills - in my view this has unquestioningly led to a lowering of standards and has disadvantaged local students entering through the usual Universities Admissions Centre system."
However, Tony Adams, Macquarie's pro-vice-chancellor (international), describes the claims as "rubbish". He says: "There are various ways in which you make allowance for students from non-English speaking backgrounds [but] I don't believe there has been a drop in our standards."
The English level required of Macquarie's 7500 international students is higher than the average for most universities and academic entry requirements are also high, he says. The university's main source country is "China, China and China" - from where it gets more than 3000 of its students, plus 900 from Hong Kong.
Students from SIBT "would be expected to have equivalent English to someone entering directly", he says, adding that those students generally perform well.
Adams says the university is obliged to report students who fail 50 per cent of their units to the federal Immigration Department, which can cancel their visas. Once this happens, most improve their performances. "It's a kick up the bum, if you like."
He says he does not know about summer school failure rates, but believes many students might prefer to be somewhere else, such as Manly on a summer's day, so he would not expect a high pass rate.
PLAGIARISM
Academics report that internet plagiarism grows as foreign student numbers rise. A senior lecturer in communication at Charles Sturt University, Chris McGillion, says: "It's a bigger problem than they [universities] are letting on."
Further, a form of plagiarism that is difficult to detect - using foreign texts translated into English - is becoming more prevalent, says Stuart Rosewarne, a political economy lecturer at Sydney University.
According to an internal document from Central Queensland University: "Lecturers are constantly dealing with issues concerning plagiarism and irregularities of referencing practices."
One of the university's lecturers says: "There's pressure not to ping plagiarism."
Tom Valentine, director of the Centre for Applied Finance at the University of Western Sydney and the former chairman of its disciplinary committee, has failed six foreign students for plagiarism in the past eight years. "You've got somebody with not terribly good English and suddenly you've got three pages of perfectly written material that would do Peter Carey credit."
The university is not doing enough to equip them with the skills for primary research and the development of independent and critical thinking, he says. "They don't want to spend that much on international students; they just want to take their money."
Diane Dwyer, the director of the university's International Office, says international students are offered free workshops and mentoring services that cover plagiarism. The university nevertheless deals with as many as 50 cases of plagiarism a year, she concedes. "[But] there is no indication that incidents of plagiarism are higher amongst international or local students."
SOFT MARKING
As the NSW secretary of the National Tertiary Education Union, Rosewarne has reignited claims of soft marking in universities driven by money-hungry managements.
Staff in his own faculty of economics and business have reported that marking standards have been lowered, he claims. They say this has been done to cater to international students whose poor English makes it difficult to perform well in assignments and even to learn critical skills.
"We expect a normal distribution of marks in the high distinction, distinction, pass, credit, fail rate. If you can imagine a normal distribution shaped like a hill, what's happened is it's moved down. They've moved the whole hill."
Abelson says the same thing has happened at Macquarie.
More than half the academics and other staff from 12 universities surveyed by Don Anderson, emeritus professor at the Australian National University, two years ago said they believed grades had been inflated and "the intellectual level required for a degree had declined".
Professor Anderson says: "I have no reason to think things would have changed for the better."
In his survey, "there were reports of pressures from management on academics to pass students who, in their opinion, should fail. An edict from top management in one university directed that, henceforth, HDs [high distinctions] and Ds [distinctions] should be awarded at lower marks." Among the reasons academics gave for declining standards were "lower quality of admissions, poor resources for teaching and pressures from above".
Anderson contends that it is unlikely to improve. "Small classes and face-to-face teaching will remain the exception."
University curriculums have been skewed by increasing privatisation. While vocational courses favoured by fee-payers grow, more traditional subjects, particularly in the arts and "soft" sciences, fight for survival.
Even if foreign fees are used to subsidise less popular subjects, such as languages and philosophy, those subjects are prone to be cut if fees drop off or if a faculty is trimming its costs.
At the University of NSW, human geography was under threat last year because it was not considered financially viable. After a battle to save it, the subject found safe haven in a new faculty.
At Newcastle University, 19 postgraduate degrees have been singled out for the chop, according to a steering committee report that examines likely cuts to programs.
All postgraduate programs with 12 or fewer students are defined in the report as "cost neutral" or unprofitable. It recommends that all "financially burdensome [postgraduate] courses should be eliminated, as they draw students from courses that may offer a greater return with greater numbers".
Even the federal Minister for Education, Brendan Nelson, describes higher education as "bleeding" because of the struggle to keep science and humanities subjects alive.
He wants universities to cut units with few students. But he is furious at decisions such as that taken by the University of Western Sydney when it dropped its podiatry degree. He blames poor decision making on universities pandering to populism, rather than considering "the core needs of Australian society". "You can do the paranormal, scepticism, surfboard riding. You can do make-up application for drag queens at Swinburne."
Student-teacher ratios are not a reflection of quality, he says, and it is up to universities to set their own English-language entry levels. "I get more complaints about students who can't understand the lecturer than I do about the students who are in the class with English-language issues."
Nelson denies the Government has cut funding to universities - rather, the rate of growth has slowed since 1996. He says that under his reforms, they will get $2.6 billion more in the coming five years.
He makes it clear the enterprise university is here to stay. "The universities are competing commercially and they need to have extremely good business management. It isn't good enough to simply provide high-quality education."
To help them expand beyond Asia - source of eight in 10 international students at Australian universities - the Government has a $113 million package to support moves into the Middle East, Europe and Latin America, he says.
However, there are warning signs that local students and academics are not the only ones unhappy with the quality of education in universities.
Gerard Sutton says some commentators argue that international student income peaked in 2004.
The number of overseas students arriving at Newcastle University dropped by almost 9 per cent this year. The University of Western Sydney had 2000 fewer international students, onshore and offshore, last year than it did in 2002, representing an estimated drop in the university's income of almost $8 million.
Studies have shown that international students are often disappointed because language and cultural difficulties - or isolation in a separate city campus - mean there is little mingling between locals and foreigners.
The convener of the National Liaison Committee for international students in Australia, Aditya Tater, says: "They want to have the Australian experience, which they don't get. It's not happening. It's just in the rhetoric."
There is a growing perception among international students that they are not getting value for money, which is dangerous because the universities' reputations overseas are based on word of mouth, she says.
"There is an issue with the quality of education. People are not satisfied. If you don't get a job with the qualification itself, it's not worth it."
Ali Abusalem, an education officer with the committee, says that marketing aggressively to students, only to have them find that their specially created campus for fee-payers has little more than a virtual library, creates a bad impression.
"It's no longer people thinking about quality. It's a business and they are thinking we have to make money to sustain our operations without knowing that slowly, slowly we kill this brand name."
In his little outpost of Ballarat in Sydney's heart, Malik is so isolated from mainstream student life that he believes Australians do not do masters degrees - because there are none where he studies.
He enjoys the city, the climate, the low cost of study here compared to Britain or the US, and the possibility of getting a job here when he finishes his degree in November. But if he were choosing again, he would apply for Sydney University: "It's got a proper campus."
Saturday, April 12, 2008
A New Life in Canberra
As I arrived at the first time in Canberra, I could feel the atmosphere of a quiet city. I suddenly knew that I would have a new life because Canberra is totally different with Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia, the city in which I spent most of my life. Jakarta is like Sydney. It is very crowded, hectic, people everywhere, lots of shops and entertainments and traffic jam during office hours. Canberra is far from those situations, though sometimes traffic jam happens during rush hours, but it is still reasonable. From what I know until today, Canberra has around 5 big shopping malls and 3 cinemas. Most of its interesting places are museums and parks. In the weekend, only shopping malls that tend to be busy and the rest of the city will be very quiet. Less people will go out compare to weekdays. Probably, it will be seen as a bored city for people who already get used with a hectic city life.
It is true about the weather. It is very cold during the winter. In the first month of my arrival, the temperature was almost -11 degrees of Celcius! At the first time, I feel the weather was so terrible because I come from the country which only has two seasons; rainy and dry season. So, I needed to adapt quite hard with this cold weather. But, I get used with it now. Infact, I like the winter season in Canberra. Well, living in Canberra is good for me. There are less temptations compare to other big cities in Australia in which I can concentrate more to my study. It is nice to have a very different life experiences with what I had before. I know I will miss this city a lot as I finish my study.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Students Get a Helping Hand to Understand
Another article that I found good to enrich our understanding to study and live in OZ. I found this article from:
Illawara Mercury, 4 March 2008, written by KATELIN McINERNEY
Helping international students to feel welcome in the Illawarra makes them feel more comfortable and it can also benefit the region, writes KATELIN McINERNEY.
Komal Chen knows what it is like to start out at a strange university half a world away from family and friends.
"I was very lucky though, I met a lot of people who were happy to help me with things like train tickets and when I was confused, people would often stop to help me," she said.
But the Illawarra Committee for International Students (ICIS) co-ordinator said not all students had it as easy.
Researchers from Melbourne and Monash universities recently interviewed 200 international students from nine different Australian universities and found two-thirds felt lonely and isolated and had problems making friends across cultures.
Apart from the personal impact on students, the findings are important because education (worth $12.5 billion last year) has replaced tourism ($11.5 billion) as Australia's top services export.
The report suggested improving "relations with locals might be the key to moving forward", and Ms Chen agreed that building positive relationships between international students and the community were crucial to a student's success and emotional wellbeing.
"I know students who have been studying at Wollongong for three or fours years who have never set foot inside an Australian home," she said.
"They come here expecting to mix in with the Australian community, but it is much harder than they thought it would be."
Ms Chen said it was often very difficult for international students to take the first step.
"A lot of students are very shy and worried about their English," she said.
"But it is hard for Australian students too because they don't want to just go up to somebody who doesn't want to be approached."
ICIS organises low-cost daytrips to destinations like Canberra and the Blue Mountains for students who want to see the sights and expand their network of friends but do not have a car.
"Many of these students do nothing on the weekends, they just sit at home and can get very depressed," Ms Chen said.
"We also do sightseeing around the region and visit places like the Nan Tien Temple."
Ms Chen said becoming part of the friendship program and helping an international student was a useful way for domestic students who had an international focus to their studies to gain an insight into the way things work in different countries.
"I sometimes get local students studying things like international business asking me can I find them a student from China to speak to," she said.
"By helping them, you get to know all about the country and the culture and they get to practice their English."
Ms Chen said the problem was that most students from the Wollongong area already had a solid social network.
"Many of the ICIS volunteers are people who know what it is like to move from outside the area to Wollongong," she said.
"Not too many students are local."
But ICIS could only do so much for students and Chen said she often had students in her office in tears and no idea where to turn.
"There are services on campus to help them, but they just not aware of them, and that is the problem," she said.
An innovative approach
A group of Wollongong academics and students have undertaken significant research into the experiences of international students.
The Welcome to Wollongong working group conducted a series of interviews with international students and found, along with issues about personal safety, accommodation, employment and their academic success, they were very concerned about not fitting in.
"We found that when students felt they had a connection to the community, they felt much happier, they felt like they belonged," project co-ordinator Associate Professor Peter Kell said.
In response to findings, the W2W project was created with the aim of making international students feel welcome in the region. To help achieve that aim, a civic reception and Welcome to Wollongong Festival was held in the Crown St Mall last week to officially welcome the students to the region.
"Many international students come from countries where a welcome by the city's establishment and elders is important," Prof Kell said.
"They are very vulnerable, very anxious and in a new and strange environment, so a symbolic welcome by the city and the community, is very, very important to them."
The project also included the launch of a website designed by international students with the information and forums on accommodation, transport, where to buy food, and safety issues.
"The website is going to be a really useful tool, because we need to ensure that students are getting the correct information," Prof Kell said.
The website also has a listing of the specialist international services UOW offers.
"Things like English language assistance, professional counselling, first-rate teacher advice and people who can help with the strict visa regime here in Australia," he said.
Student Equity and Diversity Liaison Officer (SEDLO) Virginie Schmelitschek welcomed the project and said the Illawarra community were largely unaware of the cultural and economic contribution international students make.
"What I don't think people realise is that the university would not survive without that 23 per cent of overseas students - they are full-fee paying students,and pay upwards of $10,000 a semester in university fees alone."
Ms Schmelitschek said it was vital for the region's economy and tourism that students had a positive experience in Wollongong.
"They are ambassadors of our city, " she said.
"If they go home and tell just three people about the city the word of mouth will spread and if they have negative experiences here, we potentially stand to lose a lot of money."
Ms Schmelitschek believes more locals needed to become involved with the international student community.
"We need more local people to become part of our friendship program and take a international student out for the day," she said.
"Taking students home for Christmas or taking them sightseeing is one way they can help - even showing them where the shops are is great.
"I think people are afraid international students will want to move in with them or something! That's just not the case at all - although if you've got spare space at home, having an international student for a homestay is a great way to make a bit of money and get to know more about their culture."
A more pressing problem for many overseas students was coping with the financial pressures they encountered.
"Many are not prepared for the cost of living in Australia," she said
"The perception that all international students are rich is just not true, and the reality is a lot of students are out here on a scholarship from AUSAID, or through their own government."
Ms Schmelitschek said the cost of living was particularly hard on many mature-age students who have to bring their family with them.
"Their scholarships only cover so much, and there are 'hidden' costs like public education for their children, that they often do not know about," she said.
The fact international students do not receive travel concessions also added to the financial burden of studying abroad and made everyday life more difficult.
"This is a big problem for many who do not have their own means of transport," Ms Schmelitschek said.
"A lot of students think Wollongong is a beautiful place when they arrive but it is a village compared to where some of these students come from.
"Add to that issues with transport, large gaps in bus services and train services and it can compound student's feelings of isolation."
Ms Schmelitschek acknowledged some international students had trouble striking up a friendship was a two-way street.
"Some local students are ready to help international students and the truth is many international students don't like to take those first steps and speak English to local students because they are afraid people will laugh at them,"
"Understandably, they tend to live with people of their own language groups, but we tell them in order to get the most out of their time here, they need to speak English as often as possible - in class, at the shops, around other people,"
"We tell them "go and talk to people, because you speak English a whole lot better than they speak Chinese!"
Ms Schmelitschek said international students were encouraged to join clubs and societies to help them interact.
However, some social events were hard for international students to access.
"Many international students felt that personal safety was a problem and when I asked why they didn't take advantage of things like the Unimovies more, many students replied they would not feel safe walking at night from their accommodation to the campus," she said.
Ms Schmelitschek also deals with reports of students being taken advantage of by unscrupulous real estate agents, landlords and employers.
"These students are very vulnerable and some people take advantage of them," she said.
One first year couple Ms Schmelitschek had spoken to rented what they had been told was a fully furnished house, but upon moving in found there was no dining room table, no doors on the kitchen cupboards and their washing machine didn't work.
"Their landlord had told them they didn't have to pay rent until he had fixed the place up - but of course he expected it all back when he had finished the work," she said.
"They said they weren't sure if they could say anything about it because in many countries people don't complain because they feel lucky to have a flat at all."
