Post Study Work – Lessons from Down Under

As champagne corks popped at The PIE awards it was apparent how excited the whole of the UK sector was about the reintroduction of Post Study Work for non-EU students. While the Australians at the event may have been less excited about the prospect of a more “level playing field” they always seem confident of their ability to step up a gear. Given that their universities won four PIE Awards on the night and the UK institutions only one perhaps they feel on to something and that the UK has much to learn.

The Australian sector has become strongly data driven which gives them good insights as they make strategic decisions. But the country’s academics are also building a body of work about the lived experience of international graduates as they set about building careers in Australia or on their return home. The absence of similar research in the UK is a surprising and troubling gap which needs to be filled if institutions are going to provide students with the support they deserve.

One reason for the gap may be that excitement over international student fees was much more important to campaigners than graduate outcomes. The campaign to reintroduce PSW was heavily focused on economic benefit to the UK as exemplified by the HEPI/Kaplan report on the costs and benefits of international students. In terms of outcomes an earlier HEPI/Kaplan report suggested that a non-EU postgraduate earnt, on average, increasingly less than an EU postgraduate over a ten year period (p.27).

Celebrating the victory on PSW is understandable but to convert that into a sustainable competitive advantage for international student recruitment requires more nuance and texture. Understanding the stories and experiences of international graduates as they undertake PSW can provide a strong foundation for giving them and their successors the help they need to fulfil their potential. A brief literature review of existing work from Australia offers some pointers.      

Three Thoughts from Down Under

Ly Tran at Deakin University conducted research on what international graduates thought of the 485 visa, which allows them to stay on in Australia to work for two to four years after completing degrees (CMM June 24). Although this can offer twice the time UK Non-EU Graduates will be able to remain under PSW respondents had significant reservation about the visa. They had four main issues:

• Those on two-year, not four, visa thought it was too short a time to win employer confidence, acquire work-experience, join professional bodies and/or get jobs.
• Employers did not understand the 485 visa and preferred applicants with permanent residence.
• There was “lack of flexibility” for extending/renewing visa.
• Lack of support from related stakeholders including continuing access to institutional career support services.

Her concluding thoughts were cautiously positive but she noted “Even though international graduates do not see the 485 visa as directly and immediately helping them secure a job, it gives them the benefits associated with ‘more time’ and opportunity to enhance their English language and professional, social, networking and residency capital.”

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Jill Blackmore, Mark Rahimi, Ly Tran from Deakin University conducted research looking at the employability of accounting, nursing and engineering graduates who stayed in Australia or returned to China and India. Chinese and Indian employers would, generally, only recruit from a very small number of highly ranked institutions,  Australian employers were reluctant to employ international graduates, primarily because of the perception it would be harder for them to integrate quickly and seamlessly into their businesses due to differences in first language and culture. 

While the report suggested employers should be encouraged to be more open-minded there were recommendations as to how universities could make a difference:

• structural support through careers services or similar service providers;
• curriculum intervention in embedding employability skills either in course content, delivery strategy or both;
• work experiences as a structured part of the curriculum;
• whole of program focus on generic skill capacity building English language support.

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Professor Shelley Kinash the University of Southern Queensland's Director, Advancement of Learning & Teaching conducted a series of interviews with Indian graduates. Her results suggested that international graduates felt poorly served in terms of both domestic and international Careers information advice and guidance. One disgruntled university graduates from India captured the mood of many:

‘I was sold a bag of worthless goods by both the visa agent and the university. They led me to believe that if I did my university degree in Australia, I would have a good job after graduation. They said that they would provide that job. My family sacrificed everything for me to do my degree and now I am unemployed and cannot pay them back.’

Many graduates described seeking employment in both India and Australia without success in either country. They were from multiple disciplines, in both generalist and professional degrees. Her main advice to Australian universities was to focus on supporting students to meet employer demands for ‘well-rounded’ graduates, by encouraging extra-curricular activity beyond academic studies.

Moving Forward

The message from Australia is that universities cannot be passive observers if international graduates are to thrive in the UK’s new PSW era. The omens are not good when a recent UUKi report showed that only 2% of international graduates used their University Careers Service. It’s a particularly damning statistic given the scale of the financial investment they are making.

UK HEIs need to adequately fund Careers Information Advice and Guidance offices to provide, on a continuing basis, the services that international students need whether they take advantage of PSW or choose to return home. As Ly Tran from Deakin University concluded in her report “findings also support an urgent call for universities to provide international graduates with continuing access to resources and career support to enhance their employability and employment outcomes.”

Getting metrics to measure progress may be difficult given the potential failure of the new Graduate Outcomes survey to provide sufficiently robust samples. Whether assessing what is happening in-country under PSW or when students return home it’s important to have robust data to understand impact and adjust strategies. It’s an area where universities may have to take matters into their own hands and seek better solutions.

In the interests of even-handedness, it’s also vital to remember that over 90% of students return home and will continue to do so after the introduction of PSW. They deserve the support of the university as much as those who choose to stay in the UK. For agile and innovative universities intent on building their global reputation this may become even more important than helping students who take advantage of PSW.

Asia Careers Group (ACG) was founded to support universities by helping them understand the Asian employment market and take actions to improve the prospects of their international graduates who return home after study. With over 40,000 Australian and UK graduates tracked since 2016 ACG is able to provide detailed comparative data by country and institution as well as offering practical support to engage meaningfully with employers in Asia. It’s a process which enables data-led strategy development that is good for universities, good for graduates and good for business.

Louise Nicol is director of Asia Careers Group SDN BHD, a company based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, which provides longitudinal graduate outcomes and average salary data to both the UK and ASEAN governments and UK higher education institutions. Contact - [email protected]