March 04, 2020

Anna Murray 

Considering the spread of coronavirus, Australia has forbidden most non-resident foreigners, who left or transited mainland China in the past 2 weeks, to enter the country since February.

However, Australian universities’ permitting some Chinese students to circumvent travel restrictions and come back to school brought about critics. 

In additional to providing online study resources for students who are unable to go back to school, some universities provided financial assistance to students who visited a third country in 14 days in self-isolation before landing Australia. Some of the social media posts recently showed many students ignored the quarantine rules, choosing to be out in public in a third country. Australian Minister for Education, Dan Tehan stated that the government has never encouraged Chinese students to visit a third country in 14 days, for fearing that these students be influenced by future travel restrictions by those countries.

Australian universities claimed that they would decide which students to be back to campus based on government's guideline and travel directives.

Photo:Webshot.