International students to be given more support

STUDENT groups have called on universities to do more to help international students understand the limits of their degrees after a former Bond University medical student claimed that he was misled.

The US student featured in recent media reports which suggested he had spent more than $150,000 studying at Bond before realising the degree would not allow him to practise in his home state of California.

Bond Health Sciences and Medicine dean Professor Richard Hays said the situation was unfortunate but since the medical school was relatively young the degree had never been recognised in California, although the university had begun the arduous accreditation process.

“International recognition is incredibly complicated and having a medical degree doesn’t cross international borders very easily in any direction,” he said.

Australian Medical Students Association president James Churchill said as more US students came to Australia to study in full-fee paying postgraduate courses, it was crucial medical schools made any restrictions of those courses very clear.

“The onus is on the universities to accurately represent what their graduates will be able to do with their degree,” he said.

Council of International Students Australia president Arfa Noor said international students were often “bombarded with information”.

“The question for many students is who to go to when they do have a complaint,” she said.

“Universities always seem to be able to point to a page at the back of the student guide... but we would like to see them take a more proactive approach.”

The reminder for international students came as the Health Workforce Australia national training plan, expected to advise on training numbers to allow Australia to achieve workforce self-sufficiency by 2025, was due to have gone before health ministers last week.