| Against the background of accelerating economic globalization in parallel with rapidly expanding information industry, internationalization has become a significant trend in higher education development in many countries across the world. Among them, Australia, after decades of effort, has emerged as one of the most successful countries in internationalizing its tertiary education, and is now playing a globally critical role in international education. During different periods after World War Ⅱ, the Australian Government, through effective policy-making aimed at developing international education. has formulated distinctive strategies for the internationalization of higher education in Australia.As a multi-dimensional study designed to examine the development of Australia’s international education policies since the end of World War II, the dissertation proves that the promotion of international education is the main trend of higher education reform in Australia.Chronologically speaking, international education in Australia has undergone three major stages characterized respectively by aid (the early 1950s to the 1970s), trade (the 1980s) and internationalization (the 1990s to the present). In addition, the internationalization stage has witnessed two phases, namely, the rapid expansion of internationalization between the 1990s and 2007 and the post-2008 rational development of internationalization.After World War Ⅱ. the Australian Federal Government came to attach increasing importance to higher education and released a series of reports, such as the Murray Report (1957) and the Martin Report (1965). Furthermore, in 1950, in association with Britain and other Western nations, Australia launched the Colombo Plan to provide economic and educational assistance to Asian countries. Under the Plan it officially enrolled overseas students sent by Southeast Asian and Pacific countries, partly with an aim to expand Australia’s political and ideological influences in these countries.The economic downturn in Western nations, which commenced in the late 1970s, impacted Australia substantially and contributed greatly to the transition of Australia’s international education from foreign aid to trade in education service. Australia started to implement the overseas student charge (OSC), which required overseas students to shoulder one third of the overall cost of their education. In the late 1980s, facing the greater financial burdens caused mainly by Australia’s economic difficulties and increasing welfare costs, the Australian Federal Government conducted a series of reforms, in which the Dawkins’Reform launched in 1988 with a series of reports signified the beginning of the marketization of international education in Australia and heralded the trade stage in education service. Of these reports, the Green Paper (1987) Higher Education:A Policy Discussion issued by Dawkins, the then Minister for the Department of Employment, Education and Training, was the prelude to the reform of higher education in Australia. Subsequently, the White Paper (1988) Higher Education:A Policy Statement marked the end of the era of the binary system in Australia’s higher education. The introduction of the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) catalyzed the internationalization of higher education by distributing the burden of its costs among different parties, thus setting a new standard for the charging of fees for higher education. These policies accelerated the internationalization of Australia’s education on the basis of the increasing acceptance of the concept of marketization.Following these changes and in the 1990s, the Australian Government, after reviewing its previous education policies, relocated its strategic focus in international education, which required the formulation of new policies to transform trade in education service into a broader internationalization, while still regarding education as an important part of its export. Stepping into the 21st century, international education services in Australia entered a period of rapid expansion which prioritized economic profit. However, during this process, there was an urgent need for the government to take effective measures to up-date relevant laws and regulations for the sake of the international education market. Therefore, the Federal Government issued the nation wide Education Services for Overseas Students Act (ESOS Act) and amended it several times in 1991,1997,2000 and 2001, with detailed regulations for overseas student enrolment, payment, and fund assurance. To stay up-dated in protecting the rights and interests of overseas students, the Australian Government made revisions to, and supplemented, the ESOS Act, by establishing the National Code of Practice for Registration Authorities and Providers of Education and Training to Overseas Students. The aforementioned laws shape a complete system to regulate the international education market in Australia and ensure the rights of overseas students, enhancing the foundation for education exports in Australia.In 2003, the further reform of domestic higher education and the international education service trade in Australia was outlined in Our Universities-Backing Australia’s Future. In the same year, the Ministerial Committee for Employment, Education and Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA) established the Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA) to set up a quality guarrantee mechanism for higher education. Subsequently, in November 2005, the Federal Government held a State Education Ministers meeting in Perth, which formulated the "Declaration to Output First Class International Education and Training". At the end of the same year, the Federal Government again released "A National Quality Strategy for Australian Transnational Education and Training". The principal objective of the two declarations is to guarantee that the quality of overseas students education and training programs stays consistent with national/domestic educational standards.After 2008. being confronted by the increasingly fierce competition in the international education market, the Australian Government started to readjust its international education strategies, focusing on sustainable and comprehensive developments while still pursuing economic gains. A series of policies were made and implemented to enhance the sustainable growth and improvement especially in two aspects, the quality of international education and the quality of the experiences of overseas students. The Federal Government also introduced the Baird Review in 2010, and amended ESOS 2000. to further protect the rights of overseas students and provide better services to them. Moreover, the Australian Government released The Strategic Review of the Student Visa Program, also called the Knight Review, in 2011, to lower the application requirements for student visas and issue the working visas after graduation. These adjustments to policies reshaped the global reputation of international education in Australia, and greatly boosted the Australian competitiveness in the overseas student market. Additionally, the government released the Chaney Report and the International Students Strategy for Australia, which clearly formulated the direction of international education in the next five years from 2010 to 2014. The promulgation and implementation of these policies have fundamentally shifted the strategic focus of international education from the mere pursuit of economic profits to long-term sustainable development. The strong continuity of Asian growth made Australia reaffirm that Asia Pacific was its strategic focus for further development. In 2012, the Australian Government issued the Australia in the Asian Century White Paper. In terms of international education, the government decided to focus on attracting more Asian students while at the same time, under the New Colombo Plan, it actively encouraged and sponsored Australian students to study and be interns in Asian countries, with an intention to provide opportunities for them to experience local cultures, and enhance their inter-cultural communication capacity, thus shaping a new situation of bidirectional flow. In summary, international education in Australia, after decades of advance, has entered a period of rational and comprehensive development.After illustrating international education policies of Australia, this study tries to conduct a profound analysis of the external and internal factors contributing to the introduction and implementation of these policies,with the external factors ranging from economic globalization, information technology, international organizations and Britain, America and Pacific Asian countries. Economic globalization has promoted the internationalization and formed the economic impetus of higher education in Australia; information technology has provided the necessary technical infrastructure for education internationalization; international organizations such as WTO, and some countries including Britain, America, and Pacific Asian countries, have all impacted on the development of international education policies in Australia.The examined internal factors include Australia’s domestic political and economic conditions, the role of different levels of governments as well as the influence from Non-Government Organizations (NGO) in the development of international policies.The historic influence of the political and economic environment on the formulation of policies and strategies is analyzed because the feasibility of international education policies in Australia has been shaped by, to a very large extent, domestic economic conditions. In addition, this study outlines the involvement of Federal and State governments and NGOs in formulating policies, coordinating and supervising the policy implementation, in order to protect and maintain the reputation of the international education market in Australia. Moreover, the roles of different theories in motivating Australia’s international education policies are explored, namely human capital and neo-liberalism theory, new public management theory, scale economic theory and demand theory. The general characteristics of education policies are introduced, including how economic theories and the generation of economic benefits as a primary goal have impacted on policy development; how the government has acted as the supervisory and regulatory body whilst marketization is the primary promotional method; and Australia’s response to challenges which have been characterized by timeliness and efficacy. Finally, the study puts forward recommendations for further research and study. |
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