Impacts of COVID-19 on Australian Higher Education Export-A Discussion

Based on the desktop method, this study reviews and discusses the predicted impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on Australian higher education export which is the largest service-based export sector and the fourth largest export sector in terms of value addition. The review reports that the COVID pandemic may impact the number of international students to decline by 50% in 2020-2021 academic year, hitting most the Go8 research universities and least the non-university accredited colleges and institutions. The discussion explores few optimistic policy options supporting the recovery and sustainable growth for the sector. Keywords: Coronavirus, Australian higher education, export, impact, policy. DOI: 10.7176/JESD/11-18-03 Publication date: September 30 th 2020

English proficiency, earn their return on investment (ROI) in overseas education in Australia (Tran et al., 2020). These imply that the flow of international students who are after post study work opportunities will continue during post COVID recovery period preferably to the institutions selling cheaper study programs.

Surge of Demand from Domestic Students
The higher education sector can offset little of the revenue loss from international students through potential surge in domestic students. The evidence shows that the demand for higher education usually increases during economic slowdown which requires more knowledge-intensive jobs. The first year of post Global Financial Crisis, for example, experiences 5.6% increase of higher education application than the previous year (HERP, 2020). Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department of Education, Skills and Employment projects 1.1 million jobs to be created over five years from 2019 until May 2024 which will require 45% bachelor or higher qualification (DESE, 2020).
In the early stage of post COVID-19 pandemic economic recovery, higher proportion of unemployed youth Australians who would otherwise not prefer Bachelor degree or above higher qualification are expected to prefer those because of the security of jobs requiring such qualification. This is supported by the lower unemployment rate among those with bachelor qualification during previous three economic recessions in Australia including the recent past GFC (HERP, 2020). The demand for higher education during post-recession recovery period normally rises due to job retraining (Blankenberger and Williams, 2020), job seeking, and upskilling from unemployed workforce. The higher rate of youth unemployment may thus raise the demand for higher education from year 12 students. The demand for higher education in Australia may also increase if students can easily move between VET and higher education which is one of the 21 recommendations by AQF expert review panel in 2019. It is worth mentioning here that the prime minister of Australia has already announced a package of $2 billion to boost job training and job creation during post COVID-19 recovery commencing in September 2020. $1 billion of this will be used for training or reskilling for up to 340,700 school leavers (The Conversation, 15 July 2020). This package is expected to boost the overall economy through job creation and trigger the demand for higher education from domestic students. The surge of domestic students for higher education will little offset the loss of midranked and smaller universities and least of Go8 research universities because they cannot charge at significantly higher rate for domestic students whose tuition fees have less chance to increase in near future.

Strengthened Market Position
Australian higher education system, its social values and healthcare system are highly recognized to the international students specially to the Chinese students. For example, an ABC news broadcast on 10 June 2020 claims that Chinese international students defended Australia as a safe destination for study despite a travel warning issued by the Chinese government urging their students to reconsider Australia. Australia's management of COVID-19 is evidenced in its lower rate of infection and death toll per million of population across the developed world. More specifically, in terms of death toll per million of population as of 2 nd August 2020, the UK, the US, Canada and Australia ranked 6 th (612), 12 th (584), 28 th (242), and 105 th (30), respectively (Worldometers, 8 September 2020). A number of recent successive activities, for example, launching of COVIDSafe app in tracking the suspects (COVIDSafe), provisionally approving remdesivir as the first treatment option by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA, 12 July 2020), the positive results of the phase one human trials of the South Australian Coronavirus vaccine COVAX-19 (ABC News, 01 July 2020) and the continuation of Phase 1 clinical trial of COVID-19 vaccine candidate by University of Queensland (UOQ) complement this hopes of recovery (Clinical Trials Arena, 13 July 2020) and indicate its strength in managing COVID-19.
The strengthened position of Australia in the global higher education market is complemented by a survey result which shows that Chinese students will choose Australia as safer destination for education due to the increased uncertainties caused by the COVID-19 in the US, the UK, and other European countries (The Conversation, 06 July 2020). This strengthened position of its education system, social values and healthcare to the students of China and other Asian countries may further be strongly influenced if Australia can continue its success in mitigating the worst effects of the pandemic. Moreover, Australia has advantageous position to the Asia-Pacific students in terms of synchronous communication, service and support through its proximity and shared time zone (Croucher and Locke, 2020). This strengthened position in the global student market, however, cannot offset the prospective loss from declining number of international students. Hence, this discussion explores two possible policy options such as its higher educational institutions requires to reduce charges for international students and its government needs to flexibly process student visa extend the horizon of post study work visa to attract international students during post COVID sustainable recovery and growth. These two policy options are discussed in 3.3 and 3.4 as follows.

Reducing Charges for International Students
Australian universities have continuously charged the international students at higher rates whereas they charged domestic students nearly at the constant rate since 2008. More specifically, they increased fees for international full fee-paying students by 10% per year from 2013 to 2018, indicating that they have economical flexibility to reduce the fees for international students. This flexibility is higher for Go8 universities whose revenue grows on average by 39% per year from 2014 to 2018 whereas this growth is only 19% for both mid-ranked and smaller universities (Hurley and Dyke, 2020), indicating Go8 universities are more likely to be adversely effected from less intake of international students during economic recovery unless they use the sharp axe on fees for the international students. The fee reduction will be mandatory for them to compete in the competitive market for international students because the domestic institutions of the intended students from South Asian countries may recover sooner, improve their strength and reduce their fees to retain their domestic students during post COVID pandemic period (Croucher and Locke, 2020). The sharp axes can be used directly or indirectly through offering fee discount, along with partial and meritorious scholarships which will be treated by international students as a recognition of their merits as well as the study program as competitively cheaper in the market.

Flexible Processing of Visa and Extending the horizon of Post Study Work Visa
To compete in the higher education export market, Australian governments (federal, state or territory) are expected to open the border, ease the requirements of application and grant student visas along with some conditional work opportunities including the extended Temporary Residency (TR) visa for international graduates from Australian higher educational institutions. The ministries concerned of the Australian government have already responded in a joint media release on 20 July 2020 to make five-point changes in their student visa polices favouring visa processing, renewal for existing students and counting residency for post study work visa. This change is aligned with strategic review on the student visa program 2011 which recommends for allowing a moderate period of post study work rights of international students (Knight, 2011). The announced changes in student visa is expected to keep Australia competitive to prospective international students because both Canada and the United Kingdom have already changed their post study work visa policies in March and June, respectively (The Conversation, 30 July 2020). These changes will make Australia the next destination for many of international students who are not thinking of USA as their destination for study because US president Donald Trump announced in 2018 for imposing more restrictions on international students (Mckivigan,2020). Australian governments thus need to strategically revise flexible processing of visa and extending the horizon of post study work visa eligibility in response to the initiatives taken by its competitors.

Optimism on Recovery
The optimism on recovery as discussed below will also boost the synergistic effect of the above two suggested policy options. For example, the medication for treatment and vaccination, hygiene and awareness for prevention will be developed over time which all will lead to a sustainable atmosphere for both living and education. Historically, viral infectious diseases adversely caused economic development and death tolls. For example, the Great Spanish Influenza pandemic caused GDP to decline by 6% with 2% death in 43 infected countries during 1918-1920(Barro et al., 2020. Over 100 years, however, medical science, microbiological science, information and communication technology have developed massively and innovatively, suggesting comparatively faster recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic than previous historical pandemics. More specifically, the innovation of medical science over the past century is linked with higher survival rate of this pandemic than several old virus infected pandemics such as 300 million by Smallpox, 100 million by Influenza (Spanish Flu), 30 million by HIV and 1 million annually by a number of other viruses causing gastroenteritis (Adda, 2016) whereas the world average death toll of COVID-19 pandemic is 88.5/million as of 2 August 2020 (Worldometers, 02 August, 2020).
The hope of sooner availability of COVID-19 fighting effective vaccine is supported by trials of vaccine candidates simultaneously running by a number of countries (WHO lists 17 potential vaccine candidates under human trial) (AAP, 04 July 2020). All these accumulate to hopes of recovery of global economies. The prospective recovery, whether sooner or later, will not compensate the sufferings to the society because all-natural calamities, disasters, and pandemic are undoubtedly destructive in nature through their adverse effects on smoothly running livelihoods and economy. However, they also create some natural antibody and teach us the ways of sustainable growth and living. For example, the Great Boston fire of 1872 was a destructive calamity while the post fire period can be considered as a creative destruction because of its virtual cyclical positive spillover effects on upgraded building construction, increased land values in both burnt and unburnt plots, and upgradation of tenants from residential to commercial (Hornbeck and Keniston, 2017). The COVID-19 is also forcing us to follow the rules of hygiene which will create human antibody to fight future novel viral infectious disease, and further development of medication and vaccination to lead sustainable future living and growth. Education system has already adapted and promoted the large-scale virtual learning, this indicates the education system in near future will promote the virtual learning at large scale where possible. The historic developments around the world in the Post World War II suggest that the COVID-19 lockdown may lead a better and sustainable education system to emerge (Mukherjee, 2020).

Conclusion
The discussion reveals that, due to the travel restriction in place and the nature of spreading of the virus among the closely contacted persons, the COVID-19 pandemic may adversely affect the Australian education sector which is the largest service-based export sector and the fourth largest export item. Its universities may suffer a cumulative loss of more than $10 billion in academic year 2021-2023 depending on the scenarios of availability of effective vaccination. Irrespective of the scenarios, the adverse effect will be more for Go8 universities, less for mid ranked and smaller universities and least for non-university accredited colleges and institutions. The discussion suggests few policy options for Australian higher educational institutions including cutting fees for full fee-paying international students and for governments to continuously revise visa processing and extend the horizon and length of post study work visa to compete in the global higher education export market. The discussion further demonstrates Australia's competitively advantageous position to Asia-pacific students, its strengthened position in the global student market and the optimism of economic recovery. All these will boost the synergistic effect of fee cutting and visa flexibility in attracting international students. The discussion will help policymakers in formulating recovery policies for education sector in response to its major competitors.