Comments | seeingred: Here comes Australia Day

seeingred

Here comes Australia Day

Jan 23, 2010 09:40

Had a little moment of hope and pride, reading this morning about practical responses to the Sydney race riot of 2005: Anglo women volunteered as English teachers, Muslim women volunteered as surf lifesavers.

Then Tony Abbot went and &*%*&%ed it up for me by characterising migrants as criminals. Thanks for that, mate. ("Migrants" here is code for ( Read more... )

of middle eastern appearance, desis (asians / south asians), indigenous peoples, australia, refugees and asylum seekers

Comments 3

hnpcc January 23 2010, 11:42:39 UTC

I think it's more in "white people"'s best interests to make sure their educational system doesn't turn into a complete joke funded entirely by overseas student incomes myself. I mean, if "white people" actually want to use their own country's damn education system that is. Of course they may not.

Especially when you consider that:

... reputational damage, the strength of the dollar and a tightening of the visa application process had all contributed to the drop, which could threaten the viability of colleges and lead to job losses.

is as likely to have contributed to the decline in numbers of students as the well publicised attacks in Melbourne.

Mind you, now that we've "tightened the visa application process" I expect a sudden decline in the number of available hairdressers and chefs any day now. Because God knows that's where Australia's skill shortages lie.

kateorman January 23 2010, 11:50:59 UTC

I'm not sure I'm following your line of thought here...? ("Reputational damage" refers to the "well-publicised attacks".)

hnpcc January 24 2010, 22:24:23 UTC

I think there has also been damage from the unregulated and rip-off nature of some of the "Educational institutions" - particularly with the recent closing down of at least two, possibly three. While that hasn't received the same screaming headlines that the attacks have - for good reason - I'd be surprised if the target market were unaware of it. I also think that the government's complete lack of regulation of that industry and obvious regard of overseas students (not just the Indian students) as a cash cow hasn't helped matters to that end. Overall I think the overseas perception of Australia's education "industry" has been damaged by some of these rubbish institutions that have been allowed to keep on going.

From an overall society point of view, I don't think our tertiary education system should be reliant on overseas student incomes (or an "industry" come to that). That of course is a whole different kettle of fish (or worms, heh). I also don't think we should be tolerating attacks on anyone from a social point of view, ( ... )