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The stellar rise of the education export industry in Australian higher education, and the even more spectacular downturn now occurring, mask underlying tensions that have long dogged the industry and prevented it from improving quality or achieving long-term sustainability. The international education programme has been unbalanced by the drive for revenues at any cost. The tensions are (1) between education policy and immigration policy, (2) between commercial export and the health of the domestic education and research system, (3) between neo-imperial economic exploitation of Asia and a more holistic engagement on the basis of equal respect, (4) between international students as consumers and students as people with comprehensive rights, and (5) between the national political economy and the global public good. The article suggests ways to resolve these tensions, including the forms of a bilateral protocol that would provide more coherent and comprehensive rights for international students.

The "Australian Universities' Review" began its life in 1958 as the Federal Council Bulletin, and was known as "Vestes" from 1958-1988. Simon Marginson's paper follows the fifty-year history of the journal and reviews a number of themes and trends from that history. References in the text relate to these publications by volume and number, without further specific reference to the journal's title at the time.

Assesses two recent Australian studies of diversity in higher education institutions, both financed by the Commonwealth Department of Education, Training, and Youth Affairs. Study results suggest significant diversity among universities in a number of areas, most of them closely associated with the history of the system. At the same time, state and market forces encouraging convergence are also found. (MSE)

Regional tendencies in higher education are increasingly important, for example the common rise of North-East Asian universities in China, Hong Kong SAR, Taiwan and South Korea, and Singapore in South-East Asia, to a major global role, following the prior trajectory of Japan. Though the rapidly modernizing Post-Confucian countries do not constitute a formal region, they share a common political and cultural dynamism, entailing rapid improvement of quantity and quality in education and research. This poses challenges and opportunities for Australia, a British/European heritage nation located at the edge of Asia, with extensive trade into East Asia, and an Asian-influenced demography, providing that it can (1) further develop its research capacity, given that research provides the main medium of deep collaboration in higher education, and (2) lift its cultural capacity to interface with systems in the region.

In research in cross-cultural psychology, international education is largely understood as an "adjustment" to host country norms and institutions, a notion that prioritizes social order and stability. The student is seen as in deficit in relation to these norms. The student's home country identity becomes seen as a barrier to be broken down. In contrast, this article sees higher education, and within that international education, as a process of self-formation within conditions of disequilibrium in which student subjects manage their lives reflexively, fashioning their own changing identities, albeit under social circumstances largely beyond their control. International students form their self-trajectories somewhere between home country identity (which continues to evolve in the country of education), host country identity, and a larger set of cosmopolitan options. In piloting their pathways they draw on multiple identities and fashion new forms of hybrid identity. The article highlights the need for international education programs to strengthen the agency freedom of students, and its scope and resources, to facilitate this educational process of self-formation.

"International student security" refers to the international student's maintenance of a stable capacity for self-determining human agency. The article focuses on the role of English-language proficiency in the security of students from English as Foreign Language countries, drawing on evidence from a program of semistructured interviews with 200 international students. The interviews show that language proficiency is a pervasive factor in the human security of the international students in all domains inside and outside the classroom. There is a strong link between language proficiency and the capacity for active human agency. Both findings confirm prior research literature. The article concludes with implications for practice and for further research. (Contains 1 table.)

The world's three million cross-border international students are located in a "gray zone" of regulation with incomplete human rights, security and capabilities. Like other mobile persons such as short-term business and labour entrants, and refugees, students located on foreign soil do not enjoy the same protections and entitlements as do citizens. International students are affected by two different national regulatory regimes, in the nations of citizenship and of education. But they are fully covered by neither. Their position is vulnerable and uncertain, mediated by non-citizen status and the related facts of cultural difference, information asymmetry and communication difficulties. Referring to research on international education in Australia, which has the world's fifth largest international student population, the article focuses on the manner in which the subordinated outsider status of international students magnifies the problems they face. It considers what might be done to enable them to access comprehensive protections, empowerment and human rights as defined in the United Nations' "Universal Declaration of Human Rights."

Strategies to enhance socio-economic equity in higher education embody one or both of two objectives. The first strategy is to advance "fairness" by changing the composition of participation, bringing higher education into line with the ideal model of a socially representative system. The second strategy advances "inclusion" by broadening the access and completion of under-represented groups. Governments often focus on both objectives. For example current Australian policy mentions both objectives while giving priority to fairness. But as Amartya Sen notes, the two approaches embody heterogeneous traditions of social justice. They also have diverging implications for freedom, and for social status in education (the "elephant in the room"). The utopian fairness approach emphasises the proper functioning of institutions. The realist inclusion approach emphasises the agency of those excluded. OECD country experience suggests that while measures of fairness provide useful information, a programmatic focus on enhanced inclusion is both more achievable and more fruitful. (Contains 5 notes.)

The omission of international students from the Australian Vice-Chancellor's Committee (AVCC) 2007 national study on student finances is indicative of a pattern of exclusion. The exclusion is unacceptable from a humane perspective and feeds the belief that Australians perceive international students primarily as "cash cows". This study partially compensates by drawing on information derived from indepth interviews with 200 international students across nine Australian universities. The data cast light on the sources and adequacy of international student income and how these students cope with the financial risks of living and studying in a foreign land. It is revealed that significant numbers of international students experience serious financial difficulties. Thus, we argue that government regulators and university managers should put into practice their affirmed belief that Australian university students should be treated in a consistent and caring manner. Further, we suggest the AVCC should immediately commission a study to examine the financial circumstances of Australian university international students. (Contains 6 tables.)

In the period immediately preceding the 2007 Australian election, much attention was accorded to the impact of the nation's labour laws on vulnerable employees. This debate centred on specific groups including women, youth, migrants and workers on individual employment contracts. International students, by contrast, were ignored in the debate. This omission reflects the fact that though three million students study outside their home country, this community has not previously made an appearance in the labour studies literature. In this paper, we address this omission by depicting the work experience of 200 international students studying in Australian higher education institutions. We argue that a much greater proportion of international students participate in the labour market than earlier research has indicated and that in many cases they are compelled to accept very poor conditions of employment. Furthermore, we suggest that as major sponsors of international student visas, universities should inform and protect students' labour rights and that given the dire situation of many they must become a recognised part of the vulnerable-worker debate. (Contains 2 tables.)

In a study of international student security, consisting of 200 intensive interviews with students, resident onshore in Australia, it was found that two thirds of the group had experienced problems of loneliness and/or isolation, especially in the early months. According to Weiss, students experience both "personal loneliness" because of the loss of contact with families and "social loneliness" because of the loss of networks. Both forms of loneliness are at times exacerbated by their experiences in institutional sites. The article discusses the coping mechanisms that students use. It identifies a third kind of loneliness experienced by international students, "cultural loneliness," triggered by the absence of the preferred cultural and/or linguistic environment. This can affect even students with adequate personal and social support. Thus, same-culture networks are often crucial for international students. Yet same-culture networks are not a universal panacea: They cannot substitute for adequate pastoral care by universities or ensure satisfactory engagement with local cultures, so some causes of cultural loneliness often remain. The article concludes that the creation of stronger bonds between international and local students in the educational setting, helping international students to remake their own cultural maps on their own terms, is key to a forward move on loneliness.

Global university rankings have arrived, and though still in a process of rapid evolution, they are likely to substantially influence the long-term development of higher education across the world. The inclusions, definitions, methods, implications and effects are of great importance. This paper analyses and critiques the two principal rankings systems prepared so far, the research rankings prepared by Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the composite rankings from the "Times Higher Education Supplement." It goes on to discuss the divergence between them in the performance of Australian universities, draws attention to the policy implications of rankings, and canvasses the methodological difficulties and problems. It concludes by advocating the system of university comparisons developed by the Centre for Higher Educational Development (CHE) in Germany. This evades most of the problems and perverse effects of the other rankings systems, particularly reputational and whole-of-institution rankings. It provides data more directly useful to and controlled by prospective students, and more relevant to teaching and learning. (Contains 1 table.)

The research interrogates the connections between information and communication technologies' (ICTs') use and change processes in Australian higher education. The empirical investigation focuses simultaneously on three domains of practice: the educational, the technological and the organizational, with a particular interest in their overlaps and intersections. There were 15 case studies, covering three discipline clusters (Medicine/Health Sciences, Economics and Business, English/Cultural Studies/Communications) in each of five different types of Australian university. The main research technique was semi-structured interviews with academic, executive and administrative staff, supplemented by focus groups with students and the study of curriculum and strategy documents. The main findings of the study were that the most effective use of ICTs in universities occurs when educational and organizational objectives are in harmony; when ICTs innovations are dominated by corporatist objectives at the expense of pedagogical objectives, benefits are limited and tensions evident; and pedagogical initiatives by discipline-based ICTs "champions" require central support if they are to add value on a sustained basis. The optimal conditions for ICTs innovations in teaching and learning are disciplinary independence and capacity, conditions present in only one of the 15 case studies.

The paper reflects on the implications of two influential albeit contrary movements affecting research universities in Australia (and many other nations): global rankings, which normalize the comprehensive science-based research university; and the policy emphasis on diversification. It critiques the global rankings developed by the "Times Higher Education Supplement" and the Shanghai Jiao Tong University, which tend to shift control over the definition and purpose of university activity to the rankings agencies themselves. Taken together, rankings and diversity pose for university executives and governing bodies the question of university mission and strategy. It is knowledge creation that distinguishes universities. To go to the root of mission and strategy is to revisit the academic fundamentals, focusing on the mixed public/private character of the core academic "products" of universities and on the internal ethical regimes essential to sustain free scholarship and research. (Contains 1 table and 3 notes.)

From 1990 to 2003, Australia's share of the global market in cross-border degrees grew from 1% to 9%. Full fee-paying foreign students now constitute one quarter of enrolments, and education is Australia's third largest services export. Positioned as an Anglo-American system on the edge of Asia, Australia has differentiated itself from the United States and United Kingdom on price, location, safety, and climate, not academic content. The supply side keys to growth are deregulation and prolonged reductions in the public funding of universities. However, the Shanghai Jiao Tong University survey of research performance finds that Australia is less strong in research than cross-border degrees. Australia's policy may have negative implications for its longer-term global standing and limit the range of position-taking strategies available to its universities. These themes are explored in the context of the emerging worldwide market and Australian policy changes that have enhanced institutional stratification. (Contains 3 tables, 1 figure, and 11 notes.)

In a global environment in which global, national and local nodes relate freely within common networks, all research universities must pursue strategies for building global capacity and facilitating cross-border staff and student movement and research collaboration. The study compares readings of the global environment, global and international activities and relationships, and global capacity and strategy, in two leading national universities, one in a middle level developing country (Indonesia) and the other in a middle level developed country (Australia). The main tool of investigation was interviews with parallel groups of institutional leaders and leaders of academic units and research centres, in conjunction with study of the national and local contexts. It was apparent that in both cases, while global elements are increasingly important in university strategy, mission and identity, resource capacity remains highly dependant on national government and students. This belies the romantic myth of the "stand-alone" corporate university in the global marketplace. The two cases also differ in some respects. While both universities are peak national institutions, and each respects the other, the Australian university is more strongly placed in the global environment and practical dealings between them are asymmetrical. The study helps to illuminate the dynamics of global stratification and hierarchy between developed and developing nations and institutions in higher education.

The paper explores the dynamics of competition in higher education. National competition and global competition are distinct, but feed into each other. Higher education produces "positional goods" (Hirsch 1976) that provide access to social prestige and income-earning. Research universities aim to maximise their status as producers of positional goods. This status is a function of student selectivity plus research performance. At system-level competition bifurcates between exclusivist elite institutions that produce highly value positional goods, where demand always exceeds supply and expansion is constrained to maximise status; and mass institutions (profit and non-profit) characterised by place-filling and expansion. Intermediate universities are differentiated between these poles. In global competition, the networked open information environment has facilitated (1) the emergence of a world-wide positional market of elite US/UK universities; and (2) the rapid development of a commercial mass market led by UK and Australian universities. Global competition is vectored by research capacity. This is dominated by English language, especially US universities, contributing to the pattern of asymmetrical resources and one-way global flows. The paper uses Australia as its example of system segmentation and global/national interface. It closes by reflecting on a more balanced global distribution of capacity.

The paper critically reviews the concept of "global flows", beginning with the discussions of flows and networks in Appadurai (1996), Castells (2000) and Held "et al." (1999). Emphasising the need to embed "global flows" in agency and history, and to explore global connectedness in terms of situated cases, the paper develops an analytical framework for analysing global flows in higher education. It then applies that framework in an examination of global "scapes", impacts, transformations, situatedness and relations of power in two national universities, research leaders in their nations but located in contrasting nations: Universitas Indonesia and the Australian National University. (Contains 3 tables and 6 notes.)

This article synthesises the social and economic dynamics of both non-market and market production in national education systems, drawing primarily on Marx's analysis of the commodity and Hirsch on positional competition. Market production has six principal aspects: a defined field of production, protocols governing entry/exit, the production of scarce and individualised commodities, monetary exchange and price-based coordination, competition between consumers, and market subjectivities/behaviours. In national systems the dominant form of education continues to be a status competition led by elite institutions that in key respects do "not" behave like capitalist firms. Elite universities and schools do not expand to meet demand, but remain exclusive, maximising the value of the student places they provide. Their lodestone is not revenues, but social status and power. Revenues are means to the fulfilment of status objectives. Fully commercial education is mostly conducted in lower status institutions that are subject to the price cutting of quality in a "race to the bottom". Nevertheless, fully commercial forms of education are gaining ground in national education systems, and still more at the global level in the cross-border education of foreign students and trade in intellectual property. The article examines the various kinds of educational commodity. (Contains 3 tables and 4 notes.)

Describes the growth in foreign-student enrollment in Australia's universities, offering statistics on enrollment and student distribution, reasons for the trend, drawbacks, and lessons for the United States. (EV)

Argues that the academic profession in Australia is undergoing a profound transformation with four dimensions: (1) globalization and strategic response to concomitant pressures and opportunities; (2) decline of governmental commitment to and funding of higher education; (3) the crisis of collegial values in an era of corporate and professional principles; and (4) deconstruction of academic professionalism itself. (DB)

There are severe structural barriers to improving access to higher education in Australia. Free public higher education and increased funding to improve public schools, increase higher education's capacity, and augment financial aid are recommended. (MSE)

The origins and development of the free market theory of education are examined, and the problems in the trend toward increased privatization and reduced public funding of higher education are discussed, especially for the Australian system. (MSE)

Trends in college faculty salaries in Australia since 1967 are examined, in real terms, for several academic ranks and in comparison with salaries of scientists, senior public service administrators and managers, and public service engineers. Faculty salary losses since a 1973 high are substantial, both over time and in comparison with other professionals. (MSE)

Describes attempts to establish at least 20 private universities in Australia between the mid-1980s and mid-1990s, of which only 4 remain viable. Discusses five categories of national higher-education environments. Suggests that most proposed private universities were undermined by their overtly commercial character and the strength and versatility of public universities in meeting total and elite demands. (SV)

A discussion of reform in Australian higher education in the current context of rapid social, economic, and administrative change looks at several areas of concern: the direction of the institutions; an imbalance of management and substance; and a new conformism that encourages generic institutions based on an international model and inhibits distinctiveness in Australian universities. (MSE)

An analysis of the economic returns of education in Australia finds a rising need for education at a time of diminishing apparent returns. It is proposed that the notions of credentialism and education as a positional good provide a better explanation for this phenomenon than does the human capital approach. (MSE)

A discussion of higher education as a market economy focuses on the situation in Australia. First, the nature of markets in higher education is examined. Subsequently, the role of the Federal Labor party's policy since 1983 in creating the current economy is assessed. Possible future policy directions are explored. (MSE)

Compares Australian academic salaries and those throughout the rest of the English-speaking world; examines movements in prices and community wages; and compares salaries in similar occupations in the public sector. Examines the changing nature of academic salaries. (JOW)

If Australian universities are to be competitive in the global market for college faculty, salaries and career prospects across disciplines and institutions must be improved. Award restructuring will strengthen career structures, but this restructuring must not be limited to lower levels of the profession to be effective. (MSE)

Use of outcomes measures of educational quality (1) promotes measurable values over those that cannot be measured; (2) emphasizes monetary values of outcomes when physical measures may be more appropriate; (3) creates the illusion of precision; (4) uses monolithic modeling; and (5) makes global claims based on narrow measures. (MSE)

Discusses how recent changes in funding have encouraged Australian universities to market their programs overseas, but that the commercialization of university degrees has had some unexpected, mainly negative, consequences. (EV)

The author deals with quality in education, focusing on public education, the pressures to which it has been subjected, and the urgent decisions facing those responsible for its future. He focuses specifically on educational policy in Australia. (CT)

Regional tendencies in higher education are increasingly important, for example the common rise of North-East Asian universities in China, Hong Kong SAR, Taiwan and South Korea, and Singapore in South-East Asia, to a major global role, following the prior trajectory of Japan. Though the rapidly modernizing Post-Confucian countries do not constitute a formal region, they share a common political and cultural dynamism, entailing rapid improvement of quantity and quality in education and research. This poses challenges and opportunities for Australia, a British/European heritage nation located at the edge of Asia, with extensive trade into East Asia, and an Asian-influenced demography, providing that it can (1) further develop its research capacity, given that research provides the main medium of deep collaboration in higher education, and (2) lift its cultural capacity to interface with systems in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the international student welfare regulation in Australia. Topics discussed include the worldwide growth of the education market in Australia, the human rights of international students, and the Education Services for Overseas Students Framework. Also mentioned are the re-conceiving of International Students as Trans-National Citizenship subjects, student welfare, and the National Code.

The world's three million cross-border international students are located in a 'gray zone' of regulation with incomplete human rights, security and capabilities. Like other mobile persons such as short-term business and labour entrants, and refugees, students located on foreign soil do not enjoy the same protections and entitlements as do citizens. International students are affected by two different national regulatory regimes, in the nations of citizenship and of education. But they are fully covered by neither. Their position is vulnerable and uncertain, mediated by non-citizen status and the related facts of cultural difference, information asymmetry and communication difficulties. Referring to research on international education in Australia, which has the world's fifth largest international student population, the article focuses on the manner in which the subordinated outsider status of international students magnifies the problems they face. It considers what might be done to enable them to access comprehensive protections, empowerment and human rights as defined in the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The stellar rise of the education export industry in Australian higher education, and the even more spectacular downturn now occurring, mask underlying tensions that have long dogged the industry and prevented it from improving quality or achieving long-term sustainability. The international education programme has been unbalanced by the drive for revenues at any cost. The tensions are (1) between education policy and immigration policy, (2) between commercial export and the health of the domestic education and research system, (3) between neo-imperial economic exploitation of Asia and a more holistic engagement on the basis of equal respect. (4) between international students as consumers and students as people with comprehensive rights, and (5) between the national political economy and the global public good. The article suggests ways to resolve these tensions, including the forms of a bilateral protocol that would provide more coherent and comprehensive rights for international students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the period immediately preceding the 2007 Australian election, much attention was accorded to the impact of the nation's labour laws on vulnerable employees. This debate centred on specific groups including women, youth, migrants and workers on individual employment contracts. International students, by contrast, were ignored in the debate. This omission reflects the fact that though three million students study outside their home country, this community has not previously made an appearance in the labour studies literature. In this paper, we address this omission by depicting the work experience of 200 international students studying in Australian higher education institutions. We argue that a much greater proportion of international students participate in the labour market than earlier research has indicated and that in many cases they are compelled to accept very poor conditions of employment. Furthermore, we suggest that as major sponsors of international student visas, universities should inform and protect students' labour rights and that given the dire situation of many they must become a recognised part of the vulnerable-worker debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Australian Universities' Review began its life in 1958 as the Federal Council Bulletin, and was known as Vestes from 1958- 1988. Simon Marginson's paper follows the fifty-year history of the journal and reviews a number of themes and trends from that history. References in the text relate to these publications by volume and number, without further specific reference to the journal's title at the time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a study of international student security, consisting of 200 intensive interviews with students, resident onshore in Australia, it was found that two thirds of the group had experienced problems of loneliness and/or isolation, especially in the early months. According to Weiss, students experience both personal loneliness because of the loss of contact with families and social loneliness because of the loss of networks. Both forms of loneliness are at times exacerbated by their experiences in institutional sites. The article discusses the coping mechanisms that students use. It identifies a third kind of loneliness experienced by international students, cultural loneliness, triggered by the absence of the preferred cultural and/or linguistic environment. This can affect even students with adequate personal and social support. Thus, same-culture networks are often crucial for international students. Yet same-culture networks are not a universal panacea: They cannot substitute for adequate pastoral care by universities or ensure satisfactory engagement with local cultures, so some causes of cultural loneliness often remain. The article concludes that the creation of stronger bonds between international and local students in the educational setting, helping international students to remake their own cultural maps on their own terms, is key to a forward move on loneliness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]