Australia yesterday said that it would limit the enrollment number of new international students at 270,000 for next year, as the government looks to rein in record migration that has contributed to a spike in home rental prices.
The decision follows a raft of actions since last year to end COVID-19-era concessions for foreign students and workers in Australia that helped businesses recruit staff locally while strict border controls kept overseas workers out.
“There’s about 10 percent more international students in our universities today than before the pandemic, and about 50 percent more in our private vocational and training providers,” Australian Minister for Education Jason Clare told a news conference.
Photo: Reuters
New international student enrollments would be capped at 145,000 for universities, which is about last year’s levels, and 95,000 for practical and skills-based courses.
Universities Australia said the government move would “apply a handbrake” to the sector.
“We acknowledge the government’s right to control migration numbers, but this should not be done at the expense of any one sector, particularly one as economically important as education,” Universities Australia chair professor David Lloyd said in a statement.
International education, Australia’s fourth-biggest export after iron ore, gas and coal, brought A$36.4 billion (US$24.7 billion) to the economy in the 2022-2023 financial year, but polls have showed voters are concerned about large influxes of foreign students and workers putting excess pressure on the housing market, making immigration one of the potential major battlegrounds in an election less than an year away.
Net immigration hit a record high in the year to Sept. 30 last year, surging 60 percent to a record 548,800, mostly driven by students from India, China and the Philippines.
In a bid to contain the surge in migration, the government last month more than doubled the visa fee for foreign students.
A museum in southern French city Marseille is inviting visitors to discover Europe’s relationship to the naturist lifestyle by wandering its halls in the nude. “It’s not every day you get to walk around a museum naked,” said Julie Guegnolle, 38, who was celebrating her birthday at the “Naturist Paradises” exhibition in the Museum of Civilizations of Europe and the Mediterranean (Mucem). Once a month, visitors to Mucem can explore the history of naturism in Europe in only their shoes — a precaution not for modesty’s sake but simply to “avoid getting splinters,” said Eric Stefanut, head of French naturist organization
SPIRITUAL COUPLE: Martha Louise has said she can talk with angels, while her husband, Durek Verrett, claims that he communicates with a broad range of spirits Social media influencers, reality stars and TV personalities were among the guests as the Norwegian king’s eldest child, Princess Martha Louise, married a self-professed US shaman on Saturday in a wedding ceremony following three days of festivities. The 52-year-old Martha Louise and Durek Verrett, who claims to be a sixth-generation shaman from California, tied the knot in the picturesque small town of Geiranger, one of Norway’s major tourist attractions located on a fjord with stunning views. Following festivities that started on Thursday, the actual wedding ceremony took place in a large white tent set up on a lush lawn. Guests
Four days after last scanning in for work, a 60-year-old office worker in Arizona was found dead in a cubicle at her workplace, having never left the building during that time, authorities said. Denise Prudhomme, who worked at a Wells Fargo corporate office, was found dead in a third-floor cubicle on Aug. 20, Tempe police said. She had last scanned into the building on Aug. 16 at 7am, police said. There was no indication she scanned out of the building after that. Prudhomme worked in an underpopulated area of the building. Her cause of death had not been determined, but police said the preliminary
‘DISCONNECTED’: Politics is one factor driving news avoidance, a professor said, adding that people who do not trust the government are more likely to tune it out Hannah Wong cried when the Hong Kong government effectively forced the territory’s Apple Daily and Stand News out of business three years ago. Among the last news firms in the territory willing to criticize the government openly, many saw their end as a sign that the old Hong Kong was gone for good. Today, the 35-year-old makeup artist says she has gone from reading the news every day to reducing her intake drastically to protect herself from despair. Four years into a crackdown on dissent that has swept up democracy-leaning journalists, rights advocates and politicians in the territory, a lot of people