The typical beginning of semester at Australian universities is sometimes like a carnival, as new students look to lay foundations in a new city or country, and the older ones reach out to friends and faculty, embracing the rhythm of student life.
But this year the start of the semester will not be so busy, as border closures, the looming UK variant of the coronavirus and vaccine roll out leaves international students sitting in wait.
Some students impatient to return to Australian universities have turned to Twitter to express their frustration to Australian authorities with the hashtag #LetUsBAckInAus. They say they're ready to go through stricter quarantine than usual to get back to study, if required.
Key Highlights:-
- International Students have waited to re-enter Australia for more than 10 months
- Industrial experience, practical lab work is suffering the most, say the students
- #LetUsBackInAus used to in hope of attracting the attention of Australian authorities and universities
reports that during the month of October 2019, a total of 52,000 students had arrived in Australia. The figure was 130 for the same duration in 2020.
Soham Sabarwal is an undergraduate student pursuing a degree in Commerce and Economics from Melbourne. He says he boarded the last commercial flight out of Australia before international borders closed in March last year.
He has been in India for the past 10 months, and has now entered his third semester online. This semester is also his last semester of the degree. The border closure now has him worrying for the status of his Graduate Work Visa, which he is eligible to apply for after their degree in Australia.
This is the last segment of my degree here. I even had to do my internship online. I am now worried for my temporary residency. I really want to work in Australia. If I apply for it from here in India, it would only go waste.
Sabarwal is not the only one with such fears.
Harsh Agrawal is a Mechanical Engineering student from Melbourne. He went back to India in November and his semester begins in March, but with the recent developments on the pandemic front, he remains wary of the borders opening in time to begin.
“Even if the borders open, we have already received communication from the university that the semester will remain online," he tells SBS Hindi. "Only the classes that are small in strength, like the tutorials, would be held on campus, but since the labs remain online, there seems no returning right now.”
Recently, with new coronavirus clusters forming in major cities of the country, the international arrivals capping was . PM Scott Morrison had said earlier the priority would always be to .
Students have taken to Twitter to express their stress and mental pressure of delayed studies and career paths. While Harsh and Soham still have an online option to fall back on, do not have that luxury. For them,they say their careers have simply been halted.
Harsh recounts how he was a part of the design team of his university’s annual electric car racing team, and had to give up the opportunity during the lockdown period.
“I stayed an hour away from the university. When the lockdown was imposed, the team was cut down to the bare minimum. Travel became a separate issue. In the end, I had to give up an excellent industrial experience opportunity.”
Even with growing concerns over lost time and career opportunities, the situation is unlikely to change in near future. All the students can do at this stage, is wait.
“It feels like universities are not doing enough, but honestly, there is little in their hands. We just have to wait out our time, which is not the ideal option, but really what is?” Soham says.
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