Indian students - how Australia's education industry failed the PR test

Australia’s excellent international education brand has been sullied but not destroyed by hysterical claims of racism and fraud in the private education market.

There has been a singular failure to communicate to the Indian media that the assaults were exceptions and not the rule.

The inaction by the Federal Government, the state governments of Victoria and New South Wales and the entire post secondary education industry (let’s call it an industry because that’s what it is), created a “PR vacuum” where anything could happen.

And it did. So when the next stage of the drama unfolded and Indian students cried foul when two private registered training authorities went broke, the flood gates opened. One indiscretion may seem innocent. Two indiscretions back-to-back is a PR nightmare.

Universities and TAFE’s must understand that once the media in both India and Australia get their teeth in to an issue, then it’s not the Federal Government’s problem - it’s everyone’s problem.

Inaction in public relations is death. I wish I had a dollar every time a business CEO said to me in a media crisis meeting, “If we do nothing, the media will go away won’t they?” No, they won’t.

Failing to respond leaves the media with a blank page to write anything they want. It’s a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of news. Journalists have to fill news bulletins and page space and conflict and impact stories make great content.

For more than 20 years Australian universities have been marketing against each other for a share of the international student market. It is a tough market and the global financial crisis, the swine flu and increased competition made it harder.

Since the mid 1990s Federal Government funding per domestic university student has fallen by between 20 and 30 per cent. So universities (and TAFE’s) have to make up the short fall by hunting for international full fee paying students.

This is the market at work, yet the allegations of assault against a handful of Indian students - and I notice some Chinese students too - has completely blind-sided the post-secondary education system.

Australian universities rarely act in concert, unless they’re trying to get money out of Canberra. They are not PR experts. They are not structurally geared to handle crises of this magnitude.

Almost three weeks elapsed from the time the assaults were reported in May in Melbourne to when the Prime Minister Rudd issued a statement. In that time we had demonstrations in Sydney and Melbourne. It was national news in both India and Australia.

The Times of India and TV News, using the The Age and The Herald Sun as background and quoting from local Indian student blogs, created a firestorm of negative press.

Three months later, a recent IDP survey says that about one third of international students (not including Indians) now feel less safe in Australia. That’s an example of strong media effects of TV, newspapers and negative “word of mouth”.

This is called the “fallacy of generalisation” so beloved of media commentators and it is the enemy of truth. According to the fallacy, if one Indian student is bashed on a train there must be 1000s of Indian students being attacked. The use of emotive appeals and appeals to fear, although irrational, are powerful.

Even so, in the same survey 75 per cent of Indian students and 80 per cent of students from other countries would recommend Australia to their friends. While students may be concerned about the nature of the debate, many are not being deeply or permanently affected by the headlines. This bodes well for the future of Australia’s international student market.

It was a fantastic piece of almost vaudevillian timing that two private RTO’s (registered training organisations) collapsed amidst outraged calls from Indian students saying that they had been ripped off.

The allegations of assaults and fraud have led to inquiries about the availability and standard of accommodation for international students and alleged transgressions of their workplace rights. Who ever thought up the term “viral marketing” knew a lot about how reporters work. Indeed, investigations such as these flush out people who are manipulating international students’ relatively weak bargaining power.

The core of the problem is the visa rorting system arising from education institutions and migration and education agents taking advantage of the Howard government’s policy change in 2001, to allow overseas students in Australia to apply for permanent residency as skilled migrants.

There was simply not enough regulation of the boom in students’ numbers that this provided, with all of the knock on effects in accommodation and work.

So what do we do?

First of all trips to New Delhi by government and university officials are useless. Establishing a new $8 million Australia India Institute at the University of Melbourne would have been great before the fact.

In September the government will hold an "International Student Round Table" to enable about 30 students from different countries to discuss their concerns about education and treatment while studying in Australia. Let the healing begin.

While the investigations in to rogue educational providers and agents are underway, the Federal Government should establish a marketing and PR wing in Australian Educational International to handle major campaigns - both positive and negative. A $15 billion industry deserves it.

What we need to save the brand Education Australia in India is a multi-million dollar television campaign from New Delhi to Chennai to Mumbai praising Australia’s educational virtues. That should not be hard as there are many. And the faces Indian people will see and the stories they will hear will be Indian student success stories.

The campaign will tell the story of Australia’s international education stars and point to some of our prestigious graduates. But it should also include the not so shining lights, the men and women who spend night after night hitting the books, trying to improve their lot in a foreign country through education.

And let’s not call the campaign “Where the Bloody Hell are You?”!

The government should examine the unique and innovative role and function of Education Adelaide and the South Australian Training Advocate. Between them they provide information to international students, advocate on their behalf and make sure they are getting a fair deal.

Education providers need to ask themselves this. If Chinese students started to make allegations of assaults and race prejudice, does anyone think we have a comprehensive crisis media strategy in place?

We won’t get much help from the Chinese government. They’re not happy with the Australian government about steel prices, the arrests of the Rio Tinto executives in Shanghai and letting the exiled Uighur leader, Rebiya Kadeer, speak about allegations of atrocities in western China.

We can say that international student numbers will be down in the next enrolment cycle. There’s nothing we can do about that but unless we act now and use public relations and advertising, and tell the stories of our international student successes, then we run the risk of market stagnation.