加拿大人告诉澳大利亚：在留学生问题上 "不要重蹈我们的覆辙"

发布时间：2025-01-24 10:53:14 阅读量：158

 This is a view of the Sydney Harbour. Both Australia and Canada face similar post-secondary troubles. 

这是悉尼海港的景色。澳大利亚和加拿大都面临着类似的高等教育问题。

In a hotel restaurant in downtown Melbourne, Vicki Thomson is catching her breath.

在墨尔本市中心的一家酒店餐厅里，维姬-汤姆森正在喘气。

Every day is a new city, a new hotel and a series of uncomfortable conversations. Melbourne is the fourth stop of the week, and her calendar is only getting fuller as the Australian government prepares to introduce a cap on international students after months of speculation.

她每天都辗转于不同城市、不同酒店，进行着一系列令人头疼的对话。墨尔本是本周的第四站，随着澳大利亚政府在数月的猜测后准备出台国际学生招生上限政策，她的日程愈发紧凑。

汤姆森（Thomson）是 "八校集团 "的首席执行官兼董事

Thomson is the chief executive officer and director of the Group of Eight, representing Australia’s top research institutions like the University of Sydney, University of Melbourne and University of New South Wales. All eight universities tend to rank in the top 150 in global university rankings, with a few regularly landing in the coveted top 20 positions.

汤姆森是澳大利亚八校联盟的首席执行官兼董事，该联盟代表着悉尼大学、墨尔本大学和新南威尔士大学等澳大利亚顶尖研究机构。这八所大学在全球大学排名中往往都位于前 150 名，其中有几所还经常跻身令人垂涎的前 20 名。

Global prestige is a critically important component of the Australian higher education system, helping lure hundreds of thousands of international students who choose the remote destination nestled between the Pacific and Indian oceans to pursue their studies.

全球声誉是澳大利亚高等教育体系中极其重要的组成部分，它吸引着成千上万的留学生选择澳大利亚这个位于太平洋和印度洋之间的偏远地区求学。

After a hiatus during the COVID-19 pandemic, students from around the world returned to Australia in droves, unknowingly becoming part of a tense political debate about their role in society and the financial reliance of post-secondary institutions on their tuition fees. 

在经历了 COVID-19 大流行期间的停滞之后，世界各地的学生成群结队地返回澳大利亚，在不知不觉中成为了一场紧张的政治辩论的一部分，这场辩论涉及他们在社会中的角色以及高等教育机构对学费的财政依赖。

With a population of 27 million, international education is Australia’s fourth largest industry, contributing more than $50 billion annually to its exports, and is also a major driver of the tourism sector via families visiting students. In early 2024, the government estimated there were about 717,500 international students in Australia.

澳大利亚拥有 2700 万人口，国际教育是澳大利亚的第四大产业，每年为出口贡献超过 500 亿澳元，同时也是通过家庭探访学生推动旅游业发展的重要力量。据政府估计，2024 年初，澳大利亚约有 71.75 万名留学生。

With rapid growth came new-found concern about education quality, housing shortages, migration levels, unethical education providers and a need to redirect students away from Sydney and Melbourne to other regional areas.

随着国际学生数量的快速增长，人们开始对教育质量、住房短缺、移民水平、不良教育机构等问题表示担忧，并且需要引导学生从悉尼和墨尔本等城市转向其他地区。

Over the course of 2024, there was a series of sweeping changes by the government to slow down international enrolment, like increased prices for visa applications, more scrutiny on who will be accepted, and a lowering of the maximum age for international students applying for a temporary graduate work visa from 50 to 35 years old.

在 2024 年期间，政府进行了一系列大刀阔斧的改革，以减缓国际学生的入学速度，比如提高签证申请价格，对录取对象进行更严格的审查，以及将申请临时毕业生工作签证的国际学生的最高年龄从 50 岁降至 35 岁。

“There was a perfect storm of increased international student numbers, and a government wrapping us up into an immigration debate, a cost-of-living crisis and a housing shortage,” said Thomson. “I think that’s how we got here, the question now is what we do about it.”

“国际学生数量激增，政府又将我们卷入移民辩论、生活成本危机和住房短缺等一系列问题中，这简直就是一场完美风暴，” 汤姆森说，“我觉得这就是我们目前处境的成因，现在的问题是我们该如何应对。”

Thomson is among a few key tertiary stakeholders that has access to important decision makers in government, and she knew it was preparing to announce a cap on international students after a series of other moves to rein in numbers throughout the year.

汤姆森是少数几个能接触到政府重要决策者的高等教育利益相关者之一，她知道政府在全年采取了一系列其他控制留学生人数的举措后，正准备宣布留学生人数上限。

“We are not, under any circumstances, in favour of the implementation of any sort of cap,” Thomson said in the Melbourne restaurant, speaking for schools like the University of Sydney, which has an enrolment of more than 70,000. About half of those students are international students, predominantly from China.

“无论在何种情况下，我们都不支持实施任何形式的招生上限，” 汤姆森在墨尔本的餐厅里说道，她代表着像悉尼大学这样拥有 7 万多名学生的学校，其中约一半是国际学生，且主要来自中国。

Her efforts to sway policymakers initially bore little fruit. 

她说服决策者的努力最初收效甚微。

A week later, the Australian government announced it was capping new international enrolments at 270,000 in 2025. The cuts would largely be felt by vocational institutes, similar to community colleges in Canada, with universities allowed slight increases compared to the pre-pandemic numbers in 2019, but no opportunity for further growth. 

一周后，澳大利亚政府宣布，将在 2025 年把新入学的国际学生人数限制在 27 万人。与加拿大的社区学院类似，职业院校将主要感受到这一削减，而大学则允许 2019 年的入学人数比疫情爆发前略有增加，但不会再有进一步增长的机会。

加拿大的一所学院

The government’s decision was similar to the one by the Canadian federal government, which announced a 35 per cent cut to international enrolment earlier in 2024. Canadian Immigration Minister Marc Miller updated the announcement in September, implementing a further 10 per cent cut to the number of students allowed under the cap in both 2025 and 2026.

澳大利亚政府的这一决定与加拿大联邦政府的决定类似，加拿大在 2024 年初宣布将国际学生招生人数削减 35%。加拿大移民部长马克・米勒在 9 月更新了这一决定，宣布在 2025 年和 2026 年，在原有限额基础上再削减 10%。

The Canadian decision faced strong internal pushback and has set off a series of unintended consequences, most notably the inability for universities to attract top global talent and reach its cap limits.

加拿大的这一决定在国内遭到强烈反对，并引发了一系列意想不到的后果，最明显的是大学无法吸引到全球顶尖人才，且难以达到招生上限目标。

“Quite frankly, the issue in Australia is more acute than in Canada,” said Thomson. “Our reliance is bigger; Australia’s economic growth is largely on the backs of international students. So, it’s more than an education debate, it’s a debate that impacts every part of daily life in this country.”

"坦率地说，澳大利亚的问题比加拿大更严重，"汤姆森说。"我们对留学生的依赖更大；澳大利亚的经济增长主要依靠留学生。因此，这不仅仅是一场教育辩论，而是一场影响到这个国家日常生活方方面面的辩论。

Despite broad criticism of the proposed cap in Australia, its minority government under Prime Minister Anthony Albanese moved ahead with its proposed legislation in the fall, only to be stopped in November by a surprise block by the other political parties before it could move to a Senate vote.

尽管澳大利亚提出的招生上限提议遭到广泛批评，但安东尼・阿尔巴尼斯领导的少数派政府在秋季仍推进相关立法，结果在 11 月，该立法在提交参议院投票前，意外地被其他政党阻止。

A month later in December, the government introduced a workaround for its defeated cap proposal, instructing immigration officials to process student visa applications as a high priority up until reaching 80 per cent of the caps it had previously intended to impose. After that threshold, the processing moves to a slower priority.

一个月后的 12 月，政府为其未能通过的招生上限提案提出了变通办法，指示移民官员在达到之前计划设定上限的 80% 之前，将学生签证申请作为优先处理事项。超过这个比例后，处理优先级将降低。

The latest change to policy sets up a heated campaign trail to a May Australian federal election, one expected to feature immigration as a key issue, with international students likely to be lumped into the debate, one that largely started in December 2023 when the Australian government implemented Ministerial Direction 107.

这项最新的政策变动为 2025 年 5 月的澳大利亚联邦大选拉开了激烈的竞选序幕，预计移民问题将成为关键议题，国际学生很可能被纳入这场辩论，而这场辩论很大程度上始于 2023 年 12 月澳大利亚政府实施的第 107 号部长指令。

That direction prioritized visa processing international students based on having a low risk of dropping out or working in Australia; some institutions fared well, others, particularly in regional Australia, struggled under the policy. 

该指令优先处理在澳大利亚辍学或工作风险低的国际学生的签证；一些机构从中受益，而其他机构，尤其是澳大利亚偏远地区的机构，在这项政策下举步维艰。

Luke Sheehy，澳大利亚大学首席执行官

“It wasn’t working, and discussion began within the sector and throughout government about what other avenues could be followed to slow down international student numbers, but manage it in a more streamlined approach to create long-term stability,” said Luke Sheehy, Universities Australia chief executive officer, representing 39 universities across Australia.

“这行不通，整个行业和政府内部都开始讨论，还能通过哪些其他途径来减缓国际学生数量增长，同时以更合理的方式进行管理，以实现长期稳定，” 澳大利亚大学协会首席执行官卢克・希伊说，该协会代表着澳大利亚的 39 所大学。

“We looked to Canada, we looked around the world, to think about what other policy settings might achieve better sustainability for the whole sector. In looking at Canada, that’s where caps came into the conversation.”

“我们研究了加拿大，也研究了全球其他国家，思考哪些政策设置可能会让整个行业实现更好的可持续发展。在研究加拿大时，招生上限就成为了讨论的话题。”

As Sheehy and others watched the Canadian plan roll out, it became clear it wasn’t the path to follow, he said. 

他说，随着 Sheehy 和其他人目睹加拿大计划的推出，他们发现这显然不是一条可走的路。

While final numbers are still being calculated by individual universities, the cap is expected to cost the Canadian university sector billions of dollars over the next two years, with early reports from universities suggesting they might not be able to hit the cap targets.

虽然各大学仍在计算最终数字，但预计该上限将在未来两年给加拿大大学部门造成数十亿美元的损失，各大学的早期报告显示，他们可能无法达到上限目标。

“I have had many conversations with colleagues in Canada, and the overall sentiment has been: ‘don’t do what we did.’ We have seen that the Canadian system had that shock and individual institutions couldn’t fill their caps and we were very disturbed by that, not only to see what could happen to us, but to watch a great system like Canada so quickly unravel.”

“我和加拿大的同行们进行了多次交流，他们总体的看法是：‘别做我们做过的事’。我们看到加拿大的体系受到冲击，个别机构无法完成招生上限指标，这让我们深感不安，不仅是担心同样的情况发生在我们身上，还因为看到像加拿大这样优秀的体系如此迅速地陷入困境。”

Australia has a long history of welcoming international students to its shores, with the first Chinese student arriving at the University of Sydney in 1923.

澳大利亚向来欢迎国际学生，1923 年，第一名中国学生进入悉尼大学学习。

Numbers were low until policy changes came into effect in the 1980s that allowed foreign students to enrol if they met the standards and could pay the full cost.

在 20 世纪 80 年代政策改变之前，国际学生数量一直较少。政策改变后，外国学生只要达到标准并能支付全额费用就可入学。

Growth came gradually, and successive governments encouraged the sector to grow its international enrolment, largely to develop soft diplomacy with future leaders remaining friends of Australia and the region once they return home.

此后学生数量逐渐增长，历届政府都鼓励该行业增加国际学生招生人数，这在很大程度上是为了开展软实力外交，让这些未来的领导者回国后仍能与澳大利亚及其所在地区保持友好关系。

But with large numbers came new problems. Between 2007 and 2009, international student numbers increased by 40 per cent, jumping to more than 600,000.

但是，人数众多也带来了新的问题。2007 至 2009 年间，留学生人数增加了 40%，跃升至 60 多万人。

The period has many similarities to the recent international student explosion in Canadian colleges. Australia’s vocational education and training sector expanded at a rate of 45 per cent in both 2007 and 2008, with reports of school providers encouraging people to enrol and then apply for Australian permanent residency. 

这一时期与加拿大近期社区学院国际学生数量激增的情况有许多相似之处。2007 年和 2008 年，澳大利亚职业教育与培训行业以每年 45% 的速度扩张，有报道称一些学校鼓励学生入学，然后申请澳大利亚永久居留权。

Among that cohort were about 97,000 Indian students studying in Australia, with about half studying in Melbourne. Tensions were high after a series of assaults against Indian students in the city; students mobilized and conducted mass protests, calling on the Indian government to denounce Australia as an unsafe country for Indian students.

拉加夫-莫塔尼是悉尼科技大学市场营销硕士一年级学生。

在这一群体中，约有 9.7 万名印度学生在澳大利亚学习，其中约一半在墨尔本。在墨尔本发生一系列针对印度学生的袭击事件后，局势变得紧张起来；学生们动员起来举行大规模抗议活动，呼吁印度政府谴责澳大利亚对印度学生来说是不安全的国家。

“It took well over a decade to build back the trust with Indian students to start seeing them return to schools in meaningful numbers,” said Thomson.

“花了十多年时间才重新赢得印度学生的信任，让他们开始大量重返澳大利亚校园，” 汤姆森说。

Policy changes came soon after, but the episodes left lasting scars on the entire education sector. A high Australian dollar after the 2009 financial crisis, coupled with more global competition, saw total international student numbers initially drop in the early 2010s before climbing back in the lead up to the pandemic. 

此后不久政策就发生了变化，但这些事件给整个教育行业留下了持久的创伤。2009 年金融危机后，澳元汇率走高，再加上全球竞争加剧，国际学生总数在 2010 年代初先是下降，后在疫情前又有所回升。

In 2024, China had the largest share of international students in Australia with about 182,000, according to the latest government figures. India is second, with 135,000 students, followed by Nepal with 64,000, Philippines with 38,000 and Vietnam with 37,000.

根据澳大利亚政府的最新数据，2024 年，中国留学生在澳大利亚留学生中所占比例最大，约为 18.2 万人。印度位居第二，有13.5万名学生，其次是尼泊尔，有6.4万名学生，菲律宾有3.8万名学生，越南有3.7万名学生。

Despite backlash over proposed caps in Australia, international student growth was never going to last forever, and major long-term structural changes are needed to address the direction and viability of the university sector, said Thomson.

汤姆森表示，尽管澳大利亚提出的招生上限遭到反对，但国际学生数量的增长不可能永远持续下去，为解决大学行业的发展方向和可持续性问题，需要进行重大的长期结构性变革。

“International students feel vilified. The whole debate is framed in financial terms, and it is purely mired in politics,” she said. “The discussion we need to be having is about what a good sustainable system looks like and figuring out how we can get there. Instead, it’s a money conversation that frames international students as cash cows and not as people.”

“国际学生感觉自己被妖魔化了。整个辩论都围绕着经济利益展开，完全陷入了政治泥潭，” 她说，“我们真正需要讨论的是一个良好的可持续体系应该是什么样的，以及如何实现它。然而现在只是在讨论钱，把国际学生当作摇钱树，而不是当作人来看待。”