I have thought about this long and hard, but the development that the Higher education system (including private universities) is being transformed into a vehicle for "filtered" immigration (see previous entry is one which we should be finding positives for. It has not happened by design, but I couldn't have thought of a better way to both have a large immigration intake and have it roughly filtered - by youth, finances and intelligence. If we take a holistic approach to the higher education system, rather than pigeonholing on what form a "good" university should take, the advantages of encouraging and utilising this trend should be obvious - especially to someone with a commitment to open borders.
I feel that there is only a few tweaks required, and the Higher education system can be a model of how immigration can be regulated such that it is fully funded, reasonably inclusive of the different source nations, and allows a good amount of time for the would be immigrant to be "tested" - with University exams and the whole Australian experience being a test as to whether they really want to stay here, and whether their peers who help them with their red tape etc. really want them to stay here.
3 comments:
Hmm, but haven't you said before that what we really need is more *unskilled* immigration? It strikes me that importing lots of young, smart, rich people could be dangerous unless we are sure they want to assimilate with our kulcha - what if they look down on us as old, dumb, poor people?
Yes, and the students *are* unskilled when they first get here and start to work (You know - Taxi drivers, service station attendants, trimming and packing) - And it becomes quite obvious in the process of being a part-time working, full-time student, which ones are not integrating. The would-be immigrants need to cultivate relationships with long term Australians, to enable them to cut the red tape, without which they will be on their way back to their source country.
I suspect there is probably some risk that they would look down on us somewhat for being old, dumb and poor - but so will my children.
Oh, and if we further double the student intake from current levels, you will start to see an "immigration bulge" in our population pyramid - which will possibly give us another few decades of a free ride on the demographic gravy-train like the baby boomer bulge did a few decades ago.
Post a Comment