When an industry estimated to be worth $16bn is hanging in the balance, it's amazing how quickly a government can react. In late 2009 three blows rocked Australia's education and training sector, denting its reputation as a leading "provider of quality education" to foreign students. Just months later, that combined crisis appears to have prompted the government into action.
One shock was the collapse of two major vocational and English language teaching college groups and several smaller colleges, which left students stranded and out of pocket.
About the same time, a series of violent attacks on Indian students hit the headlines, culminating in the murder of an Indian graduate in a Melbourne park. International media quickly decried "racist Australia" as a place unsafe for students.
The third unsettling incident was the federal government's decision to severely restrict the use of education in Australia as a pathway to permanent residency in what is, according to the IMF, the world's 14th richest country on a GDP per capita basis.
And so it is that just a few months on, the Baird Review of Education Services for Overseas Students has landed on the desk of Julia Gillard, the deputy prime minister and federal minister for education, with some strongly worded suggestions for fixing an industry in disarray.
The report makes clear that large numbers of colleges had been set up in recent years as little more than immigration scams. Baird noted that some colleges were: "…'selling' a migration outcome to respond to the demand from some students to 'buy' a migration outcome.
"Providers showed me flyers handed out at Flinders Street Station in Melbourne aimed at students driven to achieve something other than a quality education, with claims of cheap courses delivered to allow students to work more (eg fewer study hours mainly provided on weekends)."
The report covers a multitude of problems, from poor tuition and facilities, to dismal accommodation, and "vertically integrated" chains of business people squeezing profit from hapless students.
But the report also highlights a problem that too many Australian educators have been silent on for many years – widespread fudging of English language requirements to allow students to pour into the country without having the necessary language skills to do well in their chosen area of study.
While this cannot be alleged to be taking place across all institutions, it does apply to tens of thousands of the 490,000 foreign students who studied in Australia in 2009. For once, a review author – in this case former federal Liberal party MP Bruce Baird – did not skate around the issue.
"Throughout the review students have raised concerns about English language standards being too low and the lack of opportunities to improve their English language skills," Baird noted. "… Where providers have unusually low English language entry standards I believe they should be obliged to demonstrate how they are providing additional English language support to students in order to help them succeed at their studies and improve their English language competency."
Australia's top-tier tertiary institutions, the "Group of Eight" universities, appeared to take the high ground on this issue in their review submission by pointing out that their overseas students were required to attain a minimum score on the International English Language Testing System (Ielts) test of 6.5 "for most programmes and for law and medicine and some postgraduate programmes, the minimum score is set at 7.0 or higher".
This boast failed to impress Baird, who noted: "… as can be seen by reference to the Ielts resource [recommendations, which the report includes], these entry standards are on the low side of the English language standards that Ielts believes are necessary".
For instance, the Ielts recommendation for "linguistically demanding academic courses (eg medicine, law, linguistics, journalism)" is that scores of 7.5 to 9.0 are "acceptable", but 7.0 is only "probably acceptable".
Many smaller vocational training colleges have no provision for remedial language teaching, while the facilities on some university campuses are too limited to bring large numbers of students enrolling with low Ielts scores up to the language levels need to succeed in tertiary study.
This is despite the fact that some universities have in recent years recruited students with Ielts of 5.5. But as remedial facilities are usually offered on a voluntary basis, rather than integrated into degree programmes, universities are able to argue that English language problems have been dealt with.
The Baird report ends its examination of inadequate English requirements with a thinly veiled threat of federal government intervention – something no college big or small would welcome, given that some institutions do indeed provide appropriate English training alongside vocational or tertiary studies. It notes that a set of guidelines already developed by the Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA) spell out "the key role providers have in supporting students to achieve English language competency" – guidelines that it says can easily be applied to university and non-university providers alike.
And if the providers can't distinguish between students with adequate and inadequate English skills? Well the government will do it for them.
The report suggests reviewing the progress of colleges in voluntarily adopting the principles contained in the AUQA guidelines in 18 months' time: "Any negative impact observed may lead the Australian government to consider mandating minimal English language entrance standards."
Australia's colleges and universities have been warned.