Two special seminars as part of the Monash-Warwick Alliance Education Scheme
Wednesday 6th December, 1pm
Room C1.11-15

Peter Hurley: Pointed qualification: The role of foreign qualifications in Australia’s migration system

Recently the management of the migration has become one the biggest political issues worldwide. Events such as the mass displacement of people from Syria, Brexit, and the rise of right wing populist governments have all featured debates regarding the management of migration. The debates have sparked a renewed interest in migration management techniques such as points systems. Under a points system, potential migrants are awarded scores based on a set of criteria such as age, language ability, work experience and educational attainment. In Australia, the points system for migration has been in operation since the late 1990s. Education and educational attainment is a central feature of the Australian skilled migration system, and the assessed level of a migrant’s educational attainment plays a crucial role in determining whether they will receive a successful migration outcome.

This paper will the discuss the role of international education recognition in Australian migration system. It will trace changes in the Australian migration system to one that now emphasises the skills and qualifications of migrants. It will compare policy debates surrounding the recognition of international qualifications in different periods to demonstrate how education is being used as an inclusionary and exclusionary criterion for potential migrants. I suggest that the assessment of international qualifications can be imprecise and arbitrary. Using Foucault’s concept of biopolitics, I argue that the assessment of international qualifications performs a vital function to create the semblance of order in the movement of people. I argue that the Australian migration process necessitates a conception of education as an assessable, tradeable and measurable phenomenon and that this conception is crucial in the ascendant discourse of migration management.
Keywords: Internaitonal education, foreign qualification recognition, migration

Peter Hurley is a PhD candidate at Monash University. He has worked for over fifteen years in the international education sector. His research analyses certification systems and the use of education in migration. He has previously been the President of the Monash Postgraduate Association (MPA) and is currently the Vice-President of the MPA.

Cuong Hoang: Being a Monash research student: Experience of engaging in a collaborative and experiential learning activity

This presentation reflects on my experience of participating in a collaborative and experiential learning activity at Monash University. In this learning activity, six research students (including myself) from four disparate disciplines joined in a process of conducting research and publishing it in a peer-reviewed journal. This process was facilitated by an academic staff member from the university and framed under the experiential learning paradigm. The experience provided me with hands-on experience in writing a scholarly publication and developed my understanding of the publication process from research conceptualisation to final publication. In addition, it offered me an opportunity to gain other transferable skills such as collaboration and teamwork skills and ability to work in interdisciplinary or intercultural contexts. By presenting and reflecting on this experience as well as some key findings from our research learning activity, I wish to offer some new insights into doctoral training that can be applicable to other contexts.

Cuong Hoang is a fourth year PhD student in the Faculty of Education, Monash University. His PhD research focuses on the positions of Vietnamese social science researchers in a globalised context