Requirements that international students undertake the bulk of their courses face-to-face risk skewing the composition of Australian classes while saddling administrators with unnecessary logistical, pedagogical and equity problems, critics say.

Higher education analyst Zac Ashkanasy said visa rules risked a situation where on-campus classes?are?mostly full of international students ¨C who are obliged to be there ¨C while Australians had freedom to choose how and where they studied.

Ashkanasy, principal with consultants Nous Group, said universities needed to manage these tensions to avoid exacerbating the problem. ¡°They¡­need to think really carefully about what is it that drives a domestic student to come onto campus, and ensure that¡¯s matched with the regulatory requirements of international students in terms of campus attendance.

¡°Domestic students¡­come to campus to have a positive experience, not just to get the content. [They] come to campus because [they] can experience a whole bunch of different nationalities [and] collaboration and creativity in ways you can¡¯t on a Zoom or Teams call.¡±

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Australian students have long complained about being outnumbered by overseas cohorts, not only in disciplines favoured by foreigners ¨C such as management and commerce ¨C but also in fields of primary interest to locals, such as media studies.

This can undermine the benefits of diverse classrooms for locals and foreigners alike, while amplifying problems in the overseas cohort, such as linguistic weaknesses or unwillingness to speak up in class.

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One reason may be that Australian institutions are from teaching more than one-third of overseas students¡¯ courses online. Foreign students must also take at least one unit in face-to-face mode each study period.

The higher education regulator stopped enforcing these rules during the coronavirus pandemic, but reasserted them from mid-2023. China likewise reimposed a ban on its citizens obtaining foreign degrees from home, sparking a flight of students back to education hubs such as Australia.

But Michael Baron, academic dean of the Melbourne-based Analytics Institute of Australia, said Beijing¡¯s approach did not prevent Chinese students taking online courses within the host countries. He said the Australian rules were a pre-Covid relic that limited students¡¯ opportunities for no obvious benefit.

Baron said delivery mode should be shaped by pedagogy, not citizenship. He said the online study rules had led to ridiculous scenarios such as international students being forced to congregate on campus for group assignments conducted exclusively via computer, in fields like analytics or information technology. ¡°They¡¯re¡­engaged in online communications while sitting two metres away from one another,¡± he said.

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Writing in? international education news site, Baron said the online limits prevented overseas students from enrolling in new types of virtual courses that had emerged since the pandemic. The rules also constrained timetabling options and reduced universities¡¯ ability to offer hybrid courses delivered both online and face-to-face, while preventing administrators from recruiting remotely based academics to teach niche courses in hard-to-staff disciplines ¨C a particular problem for regional institutions.

¡°If¡­you want to teach advanced data visualisation, for example, you need to find somebody locally to deliver it,¡± Baron told 51³Ô¹Ï.

¡°It just limits the options for everybody. The rationale [is] to ensure that¡­students are here to study rather than engage in other activities. But from the perspective of students planning their day, how does it contribute?¡±

Research has linked online study with low success and high dropout rates but such findings are inconsistent. Baron said regulators should police individual course quality rather than applying blanket rules to online education. ¡°Many universities would like it,¡± he said. ¡°It would¡­give them a chance to prove that they¡¯re doing a good job.¡±

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john.ross@timeshighereducation.com