ISANA

Gary Bourton

Abstract: The ISANA Conference theme of “Promoting Integration and Interaction” could be as relevant to those
charged with the responsibility of Quality Assuring international education as it is to the education
providers who deliver it.
Increasingly, international students coming to Australia engage with a number of education providers
and education sectors, undertaking pathways from exchange, school or ELICOS student through VET
providers and then to the Higher Education sector.
Education providers have, in recent years, increasingly responded to student’s needs, with an
increasing range of multi-sector providers, offering ELICOS and Foundation Studies, or pathway
programs from Certificate courses through to higher degrees.
Across Victoria, 70% of international students are enrolled with a CRICOS registered provider offering
programs in more than one sector. Several Victorian TAFE Institutes have students enrolled across
up to five of the eight sectors of international education:
1. ELICOS
2. Foundation Studies
3. Higher Education
4. Non-Award programs
5. School programs
6. Trans-national Education
7. Vocational Education
8. Exchange Students
Despite this growing integration in the sectoral structures of international education, until recently
government regulatory and quality assurance arrangements have largely remained unchanged,
sectoral and unintegrated

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