Here is another extract from the ABC Radio National network titled, The life and times of an Indian student in Australia.

Main reporter & student: In Australia, education has come to be spoken of in the language of the bazaar. The ancient tradition of imparting knowledge from a master to the apprentice is so 20th century. In the 21st century it’s all about consuming, for a price, what Australia can produce.

An excerpt from ABC’s Four Corners television program:

Wendy Carlisle: This cooking school in Sydney’s inner west is one of the fastest-growing businesses in Australia. Four years ago, Austech was turning over just $1 million a year. Now it’s turning over more than $30 million a year. In 2008, Austech’s enrolments had climbed to over 1,600, even though it was only registered for just 124 students. How this was allowed to occur is baffling.

Main reporter & student: When the language of the bazaar is used, the rules of the bazaar can’t be far behind. I was pleasantly surprised that I could use my haggling skills, honed in Mumbai’s street markets, in my first few months in Australia. When we found out that the course content at our private college wasn’t what the brochures promised, we complained to the college and asked for our money back. We called their bluff.

Well I know we were the exception rather than the rule, but we were seen as enough of a threat to be given a substantial reduction in fees.

At the college, some staff were serious about their responsibilities as teachers, yet they didn’t last more than a semester. One of the staff who did last was the kind who nonchalantly mentioned that he was doing some freelance camera for One Nation.

I didn’t get invited nor did I invite any local students over for a meal. My little black book remained blank. On Graduation Day, in the sparkling Star City Casino, no less, I smiled with satisfaction as I ruminated on how my family’s money was well spent. I’d learned a lot, after all, like how to turn a camera on and off, how to use some video editing software and how to place my knives and forks correctly at a formal sit down graduation dinner. I tried in vain to banish the thought of the mother in the British comedy Goodness Gracious Me who said:

‘Why go to college when I can make it at home for nothing?’

Student 1: This was horrible, horrible, horrible month for me. I used to live with 21 people, live in six bedroom house, six Nepalese, three Indians, including me, and eight Chinese, and three or four other nationalities. And that’s a problem we always keep on facing, accommodation our safety, and you know…

Student 2: There was no lock in our house where people living, no locks on our door, there’s no, like, doors even sometimes. That’s some houses in Harris Park.

Main reporter & student: Within a few days of arriving in Sydney, I began to look for work. I walked along a row of beautifully maintained buildings, the late afternoon birdsong keeping the faith against the busy traffic all around. I noticed the signboard of a video production house. The door was slightly ajar and I was encouraged. I knocked.

‘Yes?’ came an unseen voice from the depths of that office.

‘Hi, I was wondering if …’

Before I finished my sentence a man rushed out with disgust oozing from his every pore.

‘Go on now, off you go, off you go, out, out’, he said, shooing me away with his hands as if I were a pesky fly.

‘F******’ Indian. Don’t ever come here again.’

We’ll have one more extract next post to round out this series.

See you next time,

James E

James Evangelidis

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Tagged as: Four Corners, Nepal, Student accommodation