CANBERRA, June 3 (Xinhua) -- Australia's Education Minister Alan Tudge has instructed university leaders to bring students back to campus as soon as possible.
Tudge told the annual Universities Australia conference in Canberra on Thursday that too few students have returned to learning on campus in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"I am still hearing from too many students or their parents who tell me that their usual student experience has still not returned," he said.
"So for this year, we must see a focus in our universities on how to enhance the classroom and learning experience of Australian students. Some do it brilliantly, but it should be all that do it brilliantly."
The tertiary education sector has repeatedly called for the government to reopen Australia's borders to international students, but Tudge said on Thursday the focus should be on local students.
"In the past several months, I have had almost every vice-chancellor talk to me about research and international students, but not many talk to me about their ambitions for Australian students," he said.
Universities Australia revealed in February that the sector lost 1.8 billion Australian dollars (1.39 billion U.S. dollars) in revenue in 2020 and cut 17,000 jobs after universities were denied access to the federal government's JobKeeper scheme. Enditem
