Victoria offers $1100 relief grants to struggling foreign students-By Michael Fowler and Anna Patty
Italian Giovanni Calandro is one of 40,000 international students in Victoria expected to receive a $1100 payment.CREDIT:SIMON SCHLUTER
Source:The Age
The Victorian government will pour $45 million into supporting international students suffering during the coronavirus lockdown.
It hopes the offer of $1100 relief payments to students will protect the future of Victoria’s $12.6 billion international education sector and stave off worldwide competition for students on the other side of the pandemic.
The number of international students in Victoria has dropped from 250,000 last year to about 150,000, with universities estimating they have already lost $5.8 billion – or about 50 per cent – in annual international student revenue.
The $1100 grants, the equivalent of two weeks of JobSeeker payments, are expected to be taken up by about 40,000 students from universities, TAFEs and private colleges who demonstrate economic hardship, said Tourism Minister Martin Pakula.
“When the COVID-19 crisis is over there will be enormous competition for international students. Many of these students don’t have to come to Victoria,” Mr Pakula said.
“They can go to other parts of this country, they can go to Canada, the UK and the USA … the kind of experience we provide to them, and the kinds of messages that they send home, is a very important part of having international students learn at our institutions.”
The government’s JobSeeker and JobKeeper payments have not been extended to international students, who have been lining up in their hundreds at food banks in Melbourne this month.
Many students, such as Italian Giovanni Calandro, have lost casual work at retail and hospitality businesses hit hard by the lockdown.
Mr Calandro, whose wife Giusy is expecting their first baby in five weeks, is struggling to survive on his savings and superannuation. His work hours as a waiter in a Melbourne pizza restaurant have been cut from 20 per week to eight.
The student, who has lived in Australia for four years and is in the final months of a masters degree in teaching at the Australian Catholic University, said his boss was subsidising his wages of $450 per week.
He said while the $1100 payment from the Victorian government would help, it would not cover his rent and other expenses.
“It is a good start – it’s a bit of relief, but I don’t think it’s enough. It is not even one month of rent for some students. It is not a solution to face the loss of income if you are not working,” he said.
With schools closed, Mr Calandro has been unable to complete his practical training in time before his visa is due to expire, and will need to find $5000 to pay for it to be extended.
He is unable to return to Italy because of travel restrictions and does not want to leave before completing his studies. He said he was hoping to make a life for his family in Australia.
“It makes me think differently about this country, ” he said.
“I always worked and pay my taxes and being cut from any sort of help from the government made me feel … [like leaving] this country.”
United Workers Union national secretary Tim Kennedy said the Victorian government emergency assistance would help international student workers, but a national response was needed to provide longer term assistance.
The Morrison government has resisted calls from within the university sector to provide financial relief to international students.
Not all State and Territory leaders are on board with the federal government’s desire for schools to open for all students. See which schools have opened for term two and what alternative plans have been put in place.
Australia’s ban on international travel is expected to be one of the last restrictions to lift, potentially limiting the arrival of international students into 2021.
Mr Pakula said he was hopeful at least part of the international education sector would reopen next year and he would “be having conversations with my federal counterpart to see what kind of appetite the Commonwealth has for [that]” in coming months.
He said he expected universities to request government funding packages later in the year, when the impact of the pandemic becomes clearer.
Some Victorian universities have announced student relief packages, such as Deakin ($25 million) and La Trobe ($12 million, including $6.8 million for international students).
