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Mainland graduates fail English test

Almost half of Chinese students lack language skills to gain residency visas in Australia

Nearly half the mainland students who completed tertiary courses in Australia over the past year and then applied for permanent residency visas failed an English language test, a study has revealed.

Of the 2,650 students who applied for permanent residency and were required to sit for an IELTS test after their studies, 45 per cent failed to obtain a score of six. This is widely regarded as the level of English competency necessary to undertake a degree or diploma.

By contrast, 94 per cent of the 2,400 Indian students achieved a score of six, as did 84 per cent of 1,400 Indonesians and 83 per cent of 860 students from Hong Kong.

In June last year, the Australian Immigration Department imposed a new rule requiring students from a number of south Asian countries who applied for permanent residency to undertake the IELTS test.

Achieving a score of six gave them 20 points towards the minimum 120 required for residency.

The results were revealed in the preliminary findings of an investigation into Australia's skilled migrant programme.

The Immigration Department has commissioned Professor Bob Birrell from Monash University and Professor Lesleyanne Hawthorne from the University of Melbourne to conduct the investigation with Professor Sue Richardson from Flinders University.

Professor Hawthorne noted that more than 72,000 mainland students were enrolled in Australian schools, technical colleges and universities, up 19 per cent on last year.

She said that while numbers from China, India and South Korea had all risen, there were declines in enrolments of students from Indonesia (down 11 per cent), Singapore (8.7 per cent) Hong Kong (7 per cent), and Malaysia (3.4 per cent).

Professor Birrell said that an average of one in five of all students who sat the test failed to achieve the score of six whereas the figure for those from China was more than double.

'The main reason this seems to have occurred is that most of these students who enrol in our tertiary institutions do not come via the student visa system but through some other means such as schools or foundation programmes,' Professor Birrel said.

He said only a minority of foreigners from non-English-speaking countries who applied for a student visa were successful and then only if they achieved an IELTS score of six. But students who first enrolled in schools or in tertiary preparatory programmes did not have to sit the IELTS test and could later begin a university course.

The findings raised questions of how students who did not demonstrate this level of competency at the end of their courses had managed to complete their studies satisfactorily, Professor Birrell said.

He drew attention to the huge growth in enrolments of foreign students undertaking masters by coursework degrees. Between 2001 and last year, the number of commencing onshore masters students jumped from 9,400 to almost 17,000 - an 82 per cent rise. At the same time, the number of commencers enrolled in higher degrees by research rose 15 per cent to 1,420.

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