'Too many Asians on medical courses'
Study says students of Chinese origin over-represented on elite programmes
Asian students are gaining entry to elite health courses in medicine, dentistry and optometry at Australia's universities far in excess of their proportion in the overall population, a new study has revealed.
The report, by researchers at Monash University, Melbourne, found that among students of Chinese origin, those born in Hong Kong, the mainland, Malaysia, Taiwan and Singapore made up nearly 21 per cent of Australia's dental and optometry students, and 10 per cent of those studying medicine. By comparison, the proportion of people born in these countries among Australia's total population aged 15-24 was less than 3 per cent.
The researchers are not recommending the government intervene to redress the balance, but at least one critic has called for special entry schemes so more Anglo-Australian students stand a better chance of gaining access to the professions.
Andrew Fraser, a former politics professor at Macquarie University in Sydney, claimed last year that Asians were already dominating competition for university places and therefore the professional careers.
Professor Fraser argued that over time the result would lead to a 'cognitive elite', an Asian managerial professional ruling class prepared to favour the interests of their own people at the expense of white Australians. He was later banned by the university from teaching and subsequently resigned.
Conservative commentator Michael Duffy, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, also questioned the demographic shift.
'Does it matter if, say by 2030, people of Asian background make up 10 per cent of the general population but several times that of those in elite jobs?' he asked. 'Opinions would vary if people were asked, but they haven't been. The nation is making this big change without any public discussion.'
The Monash study found that of all medical students enrolled in 2004, 35 per cent were either born overseas or spoke a language other than English at home. The figure for optometry was 57 per cent and for dentistry 59 per cent.
'Students of migrant background are significantly over-represented in all three fields,' Monash researchers Dr Bob Birrell and Dr Ian Dobson said.
They noted that 2001 census data showed that 84 per cent of all people living in Australia aged 15-24 were born in the country and 16 per cent were foreign-born.
Most university students in 2004 would have been drawn from this population of 15 to 24-year-olds, the researchers said. As 30 per cent of medical students were overseas-born, they were over-represented by a factor of almost two. In the case of dentistry and optometry, the over-representation was three to four times greater.
'Assuming that Australia's new immigration rules are not changed, it is likely that fee-paying overseas students will augment the nation's medical, dental and optometry workforces over the next few years,' the researchers wrote.
Given the inter-ethnic competition, the researchers said it was clear Australia-born students were the losers. But was this is a signal for government intervention and should Australian students be given help?
'Definitely not,' they said. 'We have been highly critical of the existing equity scheme and would not be a party to its extension.'
