On Wednesday 5 March 2025, SUPRA hosted a free, one-day symposium – Empowering Student Voices for International Education – dedicated to strengthening student voices in the development and implementation of tertiary education policies in Australia.
Vice-Chancellor Mark Scott gave the welcome and opening remarks for the symposium. The transcript of his address is below.
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5 March 2025
Welcome and opening remarks
Professor Mark Scott AO, Vice-Chancellor and President, The University of Sydney
Ladies and gentlemen,
It’s wonderful to be here to join you and to welcome guests of the University to campus, and to start your discussions and your deliberations today.
Can I begin also by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land in which we meet, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. If you’re joining us here at the University, you’ll see some signs announcing that this is the 175th year of the University of Sydney, so we’re moving on to two centuries of teaching, learning, and discovery here, as Australia’s oldest university. But when we reflect on the traditional owners of the land, they’ve not been here for two centuries – they’ve been here for 600 centuries. And for 600 centuries, they have been teaching, learning, and discovering on this land. We know for our work here, for this generation of students and those to come, we stand on these traditions. We seek insight and understanding of all that’s happened here before, and we want to acknowledge and pay our respects to elders, past and present.
I am very excited that this conference is taking place today and very pleased that it is happening at the University of Sydney. I want to thank Vivian and the team at SUPRA, and I particularly want to call out Weihong, who you will hear from shortly, who I know has been showing great leadership here in my time here at the University, looking out for the student voice and identifying the issues that are particularly important for our international student community, and wrestling with the grim political reality that international students don’t vote. And because international students don’t vote, then they could, in a political environment, have difficulty having their voice heard, because it’s often through the ballot box, and it’s often through political activism that change in the operating environment is achieved. So, there are challenges that international students face. Weihong and the others here at the University, as I’ve seen, have taken on that challenge and engaged in a very significant way. I want to talk a little bit about some of that.
I am really glad that students have come from a range of universities to join us here today, because one of the interesting challenges around international students is that the experience of different universities and the experience of students on different campuses can be quite different. Students from around the world come to study in Australia. They study an array of courses. They study in different settings. And, of course, different universities have different mixes of international students who come to understand that diversity and to learn from the experiences of each other. I think that is particularly important.
For me, personally speaking, I first deeply reflected on international students in my career when I was Secretary of the New South Wales Department of Education as the pandemic started. It was the first time I really looked at the extraordinary numbers of international students we had in New South Wales, the extraordinary contribution that they were making—not just to the vibrant international community of the universities of which they were a part, but the economic contribution that they were making, and the grave concerns that were felt in the Treasury department and the Tourism department and the Small Business department of Government, as they realised what it would be like if international students were unable to come to Australia. And I realised that is an under told story, a misunderstood story, and a story of very significant impact with all Australians, whether, in fact, they have any connection to university at all, and I thought that had not been well understood.
And I think from that time on, there’s been far more debate and engagement around international students. There was extraordinary relief, I think, across Australia, when borders were open again and international students began to come back, and again, we could take advantage of the wide array of contributions that international students were making to our economy. But for all of that, there’s no doubt that, particularly over the last year, I think, has been very, very difficult.
I think Ministerial Direction 107 made it very hard for students from some countries, or attending some universities and higher education institutions, to get visas. It was very, very difficult—and I think, sent confusing, contradictory messages to the community. Even though we were glad to see that go and a new Ministerial Direction 111 emerged to work through how visas are being distributed, we still remain a little bit uncertain now as to what the final outcome of that ministerial direction will be to the flow of students who are coming into Australia and the continuity of that. I must say, I’m also concerned as to what the impact of visa restrictions might mean, particularly with the increasing cost of visas now to apply to be a student in Australia and the fact that those visa fees are so much higher than other countries, and that they are non-refundable if your circumstances change. Again, I’m concerned that that is sending a message out into the international community that international students are not as welcome here as we would want them to feel. Let me make it quite clear, on behalf of the University of Sydney and I think on behalf of Australian vice chancellors – international students are warmly welcomed here and international students are a vital part of our learning community.
At its core, international students are a vital part of our learning community, because we’re a vibrant international University at the heart of a vibrant international city. Our students here are citizens of the planet and we are all enriched by being able to sit, study and work alongside citizens from all around the planet, who join us in our classrooms, who join us in our research projects, who live in our student accommodation, who are part and parcel of the university experience, year in, year out. For our Australian students, to understand the world better through the life experience of those that they are studying with is a vital part of their broadening experience. And we see the manifestation of that broadening experience by the record numbers now of our students who want to go and study overseas. The part of their learning experience being Australian students having an international experience, I think, is a direct reflection of the international learning environment that we created here at the University. As I’ve said, there’s an extraordinary economic benefit that has come to bear to the broader economy, but also the operations of the University by the contributions made by international students, and there’s no doubt that none of the Australian universities that are research powerhouses in particular would have been able to be as ambitious as they can about research attacking the great global challenges, if it hadn’t been for the presence of international students on campus.
Finally, it’s not what’s going to happen today, but what happens in 10 or 20 or 30 or 40 years’ time that I think is always underestimated. Some of my happiest events as Vice-Chancellor have been attending international graduation and alumni events around the world. In the last two years, I’ve hosted alumni events in Shanghai and Beijing that have been extraordinary. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of young graduates at those meetings. I’ve never had my photo taken more. Selfies and photos are everywhere with happy students and happy families. But what really struck me about them is talking with those students about their degrees and their time in Australia. And the overwhelming message – they loved their time here at Sydney, a transformational moment of their lives. But then going on from that, well, what are you doing now? They’re working at big banks, consultancy firms, tech firms, startups, family businesses and government-run enterprises. I’m struck that so many of them are in their late 20s or early 30s but they are on their way. And you think, what will they be doing in 10 or 20 or 30 years’ time? They’ll be CEOs, they’ll have started their own unicorns, big business, influential in government, running major government-run organisations and all of them will be friends of Australia. They’ll reflect on their time in Australia. They’ll want to work with Australia. They’ll want to come back to Australia. And that is priceless. And that is built over generations of friendship and connection and working side by side. All the talk about the contribution of international students, the down payment on the future and the soft power, public diplomacy, and the benefit of friendship, particularly across the region, is always underestimated, in my view.
So, international students, great friends, great partners, great contributors to our communities here at the University of Sydney, in Australian universities. And that’s why I welcome this initiative, that says two things really: let international students come together and think through the issues most important to their experience, and find that voice, and be able to speak with some clarity and some purpose around the things that matter most. And then let that voice be heard. Heard by vice-chancellors, heard by ministers for education, heard by parliamentarians at the state and federal level, heard by policy makers, heard by the Australian public. Let the contribution that international students make be more broadly understood. Let the benefit that comes to our community from international students be understood. And let the obligation we have to international students be understood. Because international students are not only providing us with significant funding as you know, they are giving us their time – the most precious, important years of their life, and we need to ensure that that is an outstanding return on all that international students are giving us.
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