Identity challenges and pedagogical consequences: international students in higher education pathway programmes in Australia

In recent decades, the global educational landscape has altered dramatically due to international student mobility, which is occurring on an historically unprecedented scale. Notably, this dynamic trend has been spurred by students from Asia seeking an English language-based university degree, making up 50 per cent of mobile students globally, especially in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. In consequence, Australia’s reliance on international students now forms a significant part of its export market, totalling AUS $22 billion in 2016 (an increase of 17% from the previous year), or 28 per cent of all university students in Australia, representing Australia’s third most lucrative export. This boost to the higher education sector comes at a particularly propitious time for Australian universities, which have been battling historic challenges to their financial security due to significantly reduced government funding, hence the transformation of the Australian higher education sector into one characterized by widespread corporatization and ‘relentless commercialisation’.