SYDNEY, Jan 29: More than one-third of foreign students graduating from Australian universities, mainly Asians, have such poor English skills they should never have been admitted, research released on Monday showed.

A study by demographer Bob Birrell found that over 50 per cent of South Korean and Thai students did not have sufficient English to work professionally in Australia, along with more than 43 per cent of Chinese graduates.

Some 17 per cent of students from Singapore and India, where English is more widely spoken, also failed to reach the required level, Birrell found.

Overall, 34 per cent of the graduating foreign students offered permanent residence visas in 2006 did not have competent English.

Birrell, of Melbourne’s Monash University, said almost all the 12,000 graduates tested for the survey were from Asia because these students are the most likely to apply for permanent residency on completing their studies.

However, he said that he believed the study to be representative of all foreign students, partly because Asia was a major source of fee-paying overseas students for Australian universities.

“It does raise questions about university standards,” Birrell told AFP.

Education Minister Julie Bishop described the survey as “an extraordinary attack by professor Birrell on our universities.” “International students must meet international benchmarks in language in order to get a place in a university in Australia,” she said.

The study found all graduates tested had enough command of the language to cope in most situations.

“But people who have reached this standard are still not capable of conducting a sophisticated discourse at the professional level,” it said.

Tertiary institutions are reliant on international students because they provide 15 per cent of funding, leading to suggestions that academic standards are sacrificed in favour of financial rewards.

In his report, Birrell said there was a “mountain of anecdotal material” that many overseas students struggle to meet their course requirements and that universities cope by lowering the English demands of courses.

“There is widespread recognition of the English problem,” he said.

But universities were hesitant to make students take extra language courses because this would make them more expensive and therefore less attractive than rival institutions, he said.

Professor Gerard Sutton, the president of the Australian Vice-Chancellors Committee, said most foreign students would be proficient in reading, writing and listening to English.

“What I think has been highlighted is a deficiency in spoken language,” he said, adding that a deficiency in this area would not prevent them from completing a university course.—AFP