Shortage of skilled workers Down Under
The growing number of foreign students who remain in Australia after graduating will not be enough to meet the serious shortage of skilled workers, according to a new report.
In a blistering attack on federal government claims that it is tackling Australia's skills crisis, the report says universities have been prevented from enrolling more young Australians who are needed to meet the demands of business and industry.
It says the government has been wrong in saying that Australia has over-emphasised university education to the detriment of training in the trades.
Australia needs an expansion of both types of training, but in particular it needs more funded university places for domestic students, the report says.
The report, Clearing the Myths Away: Higher Education's Place in Meeting Workforce Demands, was prepared by Dr Bob Birrell, director of the Centre for Population and Urban Research at Monash University, and colleague Virginia Rapson.
It says Australia is facing a critical shortage of university graduates and that serious shortfalls exist in fields such as health, engineering and accounting.
'The government is seeking to fill these via an expansion of the immigration programme,' the report states.
'[But] it is highly likely that in the absence of a major increase in domestic higher education training these shortages will become endemic.'
Instead of funding universities to enrol more Australians, the government over most of its period in office slashed spending on higher education and has maintained 'an effective cap on the number of places for domestic students'.
The expansion in overall numbers that has occurred is almost solely due to a huge rise in foreign student enrolments, the report states.
In 1996, when the government took office, universities enrolled fewer than 55,000 overseas students whereas this year, more than 235,000 are taking higher education courses on and offshore - a fourfold increase.
The report says that although a minority of foreign students will stay on to help with the national skills crisis, there will not be sufficient numbers the country needs.
