Foreign students isolated, friendless

Australian, The (Australia) - February 5, 2008

Author: Milanda Rout

MORE than two-thirds of overseas students in Australia feel lonely and isolated, and universities need to urgently try to address the problem by encouraging more friendships between foreign and domestic students. New research shows 67 per cent of female and 62 per cent of male international students experience ``periods of loneliness and isolation'' while studying in this country.

Researchers from Monash University and the University of Melbourne interviewed 200 students at nine universities across the country and found a failure to form friendships with domestic students was a key factor in loneliness.

The researchers found that students from Singapore were the most lonely, with 100 per cent of those interviewed saying they felt isolated and left out. Young people coming to study from Malaysia also report high rates of friendlessness and desolation, along with students from Indonesia and China.

Some students told researchers they felt they were ``in a very strange place'' and had the sense of being ``lost in a jungle'' when they first arrived in Australia. ``I just stay in my room ... sometimes I cry and when I cry out, I feel better,'' said one student from Malaysia.

An Indian student interviewed for the study said the loneliness experienced by overseas students ``gets to the point of depression''.

The five research authors, including Erlenawati Sawir and Simon Marginson, found that culture shock, personal isolation and an inability to make friends with local students contributed to loneliness among overseas students. ``It is significant that 65 per cent of those who had experienced loneliness or isolation had faced barriers in making friends across cultures,'' the research states.

The study recommends that universities make sure they have ``adequate'' student services and classroom strategies to help overseas students cope with loneliness by offering counselling, helping students learn English, and setting up social clubs and buddy systems.

``Yet relations with locals might be the key to moving forward on loneliness,'' the report states.

``If a stronger social bridge between international students and their local context is to be built, this (friendships with domestic students) is the place to build it.''

The authors recommend that universities help domestic and foreign students bond ``more effectively'' by setting up more shared classes and encouraging involvement in sporting and social clubs.

Edition: 1 - All-round Country
Section: Local
Page: 003
Record Number: AUS_T-20080205-1-003-848816
Copyright, 2008, Nationwide News Pty Limited

Foreigners are 'exploited'

Milanda Rout | February 06, 2008

CONTRARY to their image as cashed-up BMW drivers, many overseas students cannot afford to eat, are paid well below the minimum wage and are among those most vulnerable to exploitation in this country, new research says.

More than one-third of overseas students struggle financially and about 60 per cent are paid less than the legal minimum wage, according to the research.

The alarming findings come as education overtakes tourism as the nation's biggest services export, increasing by a huge 21 per cent in 2007 to $12.5 billion. The number of international student enrolments rose 18 per cent on the previous year to more than 450,000, the latest figures show.

The authors of the joint Monash University and University of Melbourne studies slammed universities for treating foreign students like "cash cows", and criticised the Australian Vice-Chancellors Committee (now known as Universities Australia) for failing to include overseas students in a recent student failing to include overseas students in a recent student welfare study.

They wrote that "many internationals are disadvantaged by their relative deficit of language and cultural skills, they are crowded into a narrower range of jobs than is available to their domestic peers, and they commonly offset these disadvantages by working for less than the legal (minimum)".

The two papers, one on international students in the workforce and the other on the financial difficulties faced by overseas students, were based on interviews with 200 students at nine universities across Australia.

The researchers found that almost 60 per cent of students earned below the minimum wage and 37per cent had experienced financial hardship, including not having enough money to travel to university or even eat.

"I had a very hard time finding a job. (For the) first two months I was unemployed," one 36-year-old Indian student told researchers. "My rent is very high - it's $120 a week - and other than that you have travelling, eating, everything.

"So I starved."

The researchers discovered 70 per cent of international students worked at some stage during their studies in Australia and a number admitted to working more than the maximum 20 hours allowed by their study visas.

"Of the students who reported their hourly rate, 58 per cent earned between $7 and $15 per hour at a time when the legal minimum for a casual waiter was $16.08 an hour and the rate for a casual shop assistant was $17.97 per hour," the study states.

Conducted by Simon Marginson, Chris Nyland, Erlenawati Sawir, Gaby Ramia and Helen Forbes-Mewett, the research also found foreign students were more likely to be exploited because of their lack of English skills and ignorance of workplace rights. The researchers called for urgent action by governments and universities.

They urged better education for international students about their workplace rights and better investigations by workplace authorities to expose the injustices experienced by working overseas students.

Professor Nyland and his colleagues wrote that the decision by UA not to include overseas students in its finances study "sadly lends credence to the much repeated claim that Australian university managers view international students primarily as customers who exist to be milked".

But UA chief executive Glenn Withers rejected the claim that tertiary institutions treated international students like cash cows and don't care about their welfare.