The innovative international operator CQUniversity in Australia has announced that it is closing its commercial operating company, C Management Services (CMS), which historically ran the international campuses of the 10-campus strong university brand.
Citing significant losses and a repositioning of its activities, Vice Chancellor Scott Bowman said the commercial company set-up no longer suited CQU’s ambitions.
Changes to visa rules and increased competition have made the operating environment far more challenging
Central Queensland University (CQUniversity), which until 2012 had four “metropolitan campuses” that only recruited internationally, was one of the golden boys of Australia’s international education boom. In 2002, the public institution was heavily investing in marketing internationally and teaching almost 9,000 international students per year.
However, speaking to The Australian, Bowman suggested international numbers had halved across CQU campuses, and that his focus was now on partnerships not “commercialisation” – as well as the cost savings possible by bringing CMS services back under the auspices of the university.
Bowman – who joined CQU in 2009 from James Cook University – added that changes to Australian visa rules and increased competition had made the operating environment far more challenging; so too the strict application of the genuine temporary entry test for streamlined visas.
“Last year we rejected something like about 80 per cent of the international students that applied to us,” he said. “We’ve gone from being one of the highest ranked immigration risks to being one of the lowest.”
While some report jobs will be lost, Ailsa Lamont, Pro-Vice Chancellor International at CQU, told The PIE News that the closure was “part of a broader process of greater integration across the campuses”. This has included opening up CQU’s metropolitan campuses to domestic undergraduate students in 2012.
She said the university was now investing in building community and institutional links with the countries it recruits from, and wanted to focus on much more than just international recruitment. This could involve equipping international cohorts with soft skills to ensure assimilation and a springboard into the jobs market; and engaging more closely with the countries from which the university recruits.
CQU is now investing in building community and institutional links with the countries it recruits from
Lamont flagged the university’s ‘Giving Back’ programme as an example, which involves sponsorship of the Indian NGO Salaam Baalak Trust.
“We feel a sense of social responsibility towards our students and I love that our work to rebuild our international numbers has an additional purpose,” she said. “It will allow us to further develop our Giving Back partnerships and to create exchange and volunteering options overseas for our Australian students.”
C Management Services has been a wholly owned subsidiary of CQUniversity since 2008 and senior university staff have held key roles in the company as Chair of the Board, CEO and CFO since early 2012. Wikipedia reports that a Queensland treasury loan enabled the university to purchase CMS.
