Australia takes steps to ensure quality education in universities

The Australian government is getting tougher with private education providers who recruit international students through unscrupulous agents making it mandatory for them to provide the list of agents. This was one of the key aspects included in the changes proposed to the education services for overseas students act, 2000 (ESOA). The amendment bill was introduced by minister for education Julia Gillard in Parliament on Wednesday.

The changes will require the education provides to list the names of education agents, who represent them and promote their education services, and comply with any matter prescribed in the regulations. The changes will also ensure that the principal purpose of educational institutions is to provide education, and the provider demonstrates the capacity to give education of a satisfactory standard.

The amendments call for re-registration by December 31, 2010 of all institutions now registered on the commonwealth register of institutions and courses for overseas students (CRICOS) conditions imposed on the education provides will be recognized by the commonwealth.

Under the scanner: the amendments are the first in a series of measures the government is taking to ensure that Australia continues to offer world-class, quality international education in the changing environment. These measures assume significance with the quality of education coming under the scanner after the international media, particularly the Indian media, highlighted the issue in the wake of attacks on Indian students here.

Many students and teachers from popular universities here view the courses, mostly vocational diplomas, offered by private colleges as substandard, which do not meet the quality prescribed by the Australian government and are being used as a dashboard to get into the country. Interestingly, the majority of students coming under attack are enrolled in such institutions here and mostly in Victoria.

Earlier, skills and workforce participation Minister of Victoria Jacinta Allan told a visiting Indian media delegation that Victoria initiated a repid audit of education and training providers suspected of breaching their legal obligations. “ The audit is on and expected to be completed soon,”.

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The slow road to justice

Despite being heard by special courts with fast-track procedures, cases relating to terrorist crimes have generally proceeded at an achingly slow pace. It took 13 seemingly interminable years for a TADA designated court in Mumbai to convict 100 people in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts case, even though the primary charge sheet was filed about eight months after the outrage. In comparison, the trial in the 2003 Mumbai twin blasts case in which a special POTA court handed out convictions earlier this week was much shorter. Even so, six years is a very long time, given the nature of the case. All the six accused (of whom two were acquitted and one turned approver) were arrested within two months of the outrage. Although allegedly hatched in Dubai, there was no Byzantine conspiracy to unravel. The prosecution’s evidence relied heavily on the testimony of a taxi driver, who ferried two of the convicted in his vehicle before the bombs were triggered. It is believed that the statement of the approver, a Lashkar-e-Taibaoperative who was pardoned by the POTA court, further bolstered the prosecution’s case.

The Mumbai twin blasts case, which killed 52 people and injured 184, was one of the worst terrorist attacks on the city, exceeded in its dreadfulness only by such tragedies as the multiple explosions in 1993 and last year’s 26/11 outrage. The bombs, which were placed in the boots of two vehicles parked at Gateway of India and Zaveri Bazar, were aimed at causing random deaths and creating panic. If the 26/11 conspiracy was unravelled quickly owing to the capture of Mohammed Ajmal Amir ‘Kasab’, the one behind the 2003 blasts was speedily exposed when the taxi driver, who survived due to a stroke of luck, was able to, provide enough leads for the police to track down his passengers on that fateful day- the convicted couple Haneef Sayeed and his wife Fahmeeda. There will be an appeal against the POTA court verdict, which must be decided-irrespective of the outcome-expeditiously. Prosecuting terrorist crimes need not be a painful protracted affair and the judiciary has shown it is capable of disposing matters quickly when there is an overall sense of urgency. It look only a little more than a year from the date of the attack on Parliament in 2001 for a POTA court to arrive at a judgment – a case that involved many witnesses and a mass of documents. And it is unlikely that the 26/11 attack case, which is being heard now, will be allowed to drag on for many years. The 2003 twin blasts case is a reminder that the commitment to speeding up the delivery of justice should apply to all cases and not merely those considered high profile and in which there is a grater degree of official interest.

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