Mon, Apr 24, 2023 page4

• ‘Sold a dream’: The foreign students lured to Australia with false promises

  • The Guardian
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  Muhammad Ihsan thought his Australian student visa was a ticket to a world-class education at a prestigious institution and, ultimately, a six-figure job.

  Instead, the Pakistani national found himself sitting in an almost-empty room in Melbourne, where his teacher barely spoke English.

  Nearly a decade after he arrived in Australia, Ihsan lives in Launceston, Tasmania, driving Ubers and filling short-term jobs, still hoping to secure permanent residency.

  

  People row along the Maribyrnong River toward the Melbourne skyline in the early morning on Tuesday.

  Photo: AFP

  He said he has paid more than A$100,000 (US$66,920) in upfront fees at Australian institutions, convinced into courses by agents promising great job outcomes.

  “I’ve lost every shot I can have at a career, and more will be exploited in the same way,” Ihsan said.

  Ihsan is one of a number of international students caught up in the unregulated world of foreign agents — people who are paid huge bonuses by private providers to lure international students into substandard courses with assurances of full-time work and a path to permanent residency.

  Foreign agents have been used by Australian universities for decades to drive enrolments and assist students offshore with application processes and accommodation.

  However, some are accused of bribing international students with laptops, easy course models and false promises about what could happen after they graduate.

  The issue was back in the spotlight last week at a parliamentary inquiry into the international student sector, where the chief executive of the International Education Association of Australia, Phil Honeywood, said Australia’s international education system had become a “Ponzi scheme” in which onshore and overseas agents were paid up to 50 percent commission by independent institutions to funnel South Asian students into courses with poor credentials that did not suit their talents or skills.

  “These agents need to be regulated,” Honeywood told Guardian Australia. “It’s not hard to do, but they’ve been getting away with it for two decades.”

  Ihsan arrived in Australia in 2013 on a student visa to complete a masters in biotech and bioinformatics at a university in Melbourne. He had graduated top of his course with a bachelors in medical genetics.

  The agents who enrolled him in his initial course in Australia had traveled to Pakistan, he said.

  When he arrived in Australia, he found that of about 90 students in his course, just two were Australian. The vast majority were Indian students.

  Ihsan said agents often enrol students in courses and then funnel them to different institutions to gain additional commission.

  In one instance, he was advised by an agent to enrol in what Ihsan calls an independent “scam college” in Tasmania where there was “no education [standards] whatsoever.”

  Ihsan paid A$20,000 in upfront fees to study there.

  After paying the agent, he was unable to contact them with queries about the course.

  Another course Ihsan took at an independent institute in Melbourne cost A$56,000 for two semesters.

  “You can’t even label it as a course, it had no use,” he said. “Teachers were teaching masters-level courses and you can’t comprehend a single thing they’re saying.”

  Ihsan said more than 100 people turned up for the first session, but he believes they still passed with degrees, although many of them stopped coming to class.

  “I was sitting there in an empty room,” he said. “It’s all fake.”
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