Bursting of the Education Bubble

It is an irony that what started out as a series of assault cases on Indian students and had the Indian community all worked up, has now turned full circle and engulfed the Indian community itself. The exposes and sting operations on Indian businesses have opened up a can of worms.

However there are still a handful of operators who escaped the whip this time and need to be trapped soon, perhaps in the next cycle as whistle blowers within our community get more courage to speak out. According to sources the reason why some of the other shonky Indian operators were not exposed on the ABC Four Corners show was the lack of insiders willing to come forward and share information.

Using the old ‘lalaji’ Indian way of doing business in Western countries is a path to short term riches but is not sustainable and will not put these businesses in the top league. Unfortunately some of the Indian stores, hotels and college owners are using the same old lethargic style of management inside their businesses while doing business in Australia and this leads to soft exploitation of these students.

The question one needs to ask is why does the government not act in time? Will the immigration and education department act only if there is a media expose? Is this not a part of their ongoing job? The education and technical education bureaucracy needs a big overhaul. Somebody needs to be accountable for bursting of the Education bubble.

While Indian businesses and bad practices within these businesses have been exposed, a crucial point that has been missed in the debate is the exploitation of students by the larger business community. The medium sized businesses which are major employers of students, sometimes fail to provide proper Operational Health and Safety environment to these students.

I recently met a cookery student who collects shopping trolleys and puts them in the shop bays for customers. He travels for 3 hours between his home and his job, also attends cookery classes and sometimes works over 10 hours a day doing hardcore physical work. He often develops blisters on his feet as he is constantly walking and standing and gets a lot of requests from his employer to come at odd hours to fill in, obviously with scant regard for the fact that students can work for only 20 hours. This person has no time for cooking and survives on eating bread or whatever he can find leftover at his friends place. At 20 years of age he is facing the same stress as a 50 year old person and his most recent worry is what if his college closes before he finishes his course in December. The onus of making sure that every student works only for 20 hours a week has to be put on the employer as well.

Knowing that you can work for long hours is a strong attraction for most of the students from India who then resort to “fraudulent paper” loans for coming into Australia. These loans are sought for educational purposes from some banks, not used, and often closed after some time. For some students and their families getting out of India is a frustrating struggle.  But what they forget is that doing mean jobs and loss of respect is a much bigger frustration.

The recent events may just have been the prick needed to burst the Education bubble and may have the same impact on Australian small and medium businesses as the Global Financial Crisis as they might lose the unfair competitive advantage they have at the moment, by making the students work more than 20 hours in a week.

The systemic rot inside the education industry will take time to clean up and the education for immigration policy has failed completely. In the race to attract foreign students, regulations have been thrown to the winds causing damage to one of precious Australian exports.

While exposing the Indian businesses and shonky operators is good, the primary focus of guaranteeing security and enforcing law and order has to be of paramount importance.

Similar Posts:

• Indian Businesses Fear Backlash
• Slumdog Education
• NSW Premier’s Speech at India Australia Friendship Fair 2009
• HCL Technologies: Confident of its future growth
• A Lost Opportunity