What’s happening in international student complaints?

Join us for a presentation followed by a question and answer session with Klara Major and Madeleine Ferguson from the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s Students team.

Participants will be encouraged to send in any questions and topics prior to the session.

The Commonwealth Ombudsman, who is also the Overseas Students Ombudsman, can consider complaints from international students about problems they’re having with private education providers. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ombudsman received a wave of complaints from students who couldn’t or didn’t want to study online. Over time, the main complaint issues changed to students seeking allowances for their financial distress, and we are now seeing complaints from students overseas who can’t travel to commence their studies in Australia, and are asking for refunds of pre-paid fees.

The Commonwealth Ombudsman is also the Overseas Students Ombudsman. In this capacity, the Ombudsman:

• can investigate complaints about problems that intending, current or former overseas students have with private schools, colleges and universities (education providers) in Australia
• provides information about best practice complaints handling to help private education providers manage internal complaints effectively
• publishes reports on problems and broader issues in international education that we identify through investigations.

The Ombudsman’s Office has investigated more than 2,000 complaints from international students, giving them a unique insight into the problems that international students can face, and what can be done about them.