Paying fees ... the Productivity Commission has warned Australia is too reliant on international agents to recruit foreign students. Picture: Thinkstock Source: Supplied

As new figures showed the number of fee-paying international students, mainly from Asia, grew by more than 11 per cent last year, the government’s key economic advisory body has warned Australian universities are too reliant on overseas recruitment agents, including potentially fraudulent operators, to source international students.

The Productivity Commission said Australia could be losing the brightest international students to the United States and Britain because recruitment agents based in countries like China and India are chasing lucrative commissions rather than trying to find the best students for the course.

Risky the report warns some recruitment agents could be falsifying information. Picture: Supplied Source: News Limited

The report, released on Thursday, triggered calls for the government to take further steps to minimise the heavy use of foreign agents to attract international students.

It came as new figures showed a sharp increase in the number of international students travelling to Australia to study, up 11.5 per cent from this time last year, with Sri Lanka, Thailand and Taiwan emerging as strong markets for Australian universities.

The Productivity Commission warned that the “unscrupulous behaviour of agents”, including concerns that some recruiters used by Australian universities were providing false information, was jeopardising the reputation of Australia’s tertiary education system.

It revealed Australian universities are relying far more heavily on these foreign agents than comparable countries, sourcing 53 per cent of their international students this way, compared to just 11 per cent in the United States, and 38 per cent in Britain.

Australian universities are also paying these agents more generous commissions, as much as 17.4 per cent of a first year tuition fees, compared to American universities which pay up to 12.3 per cent in commission.

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Education Minister Christopher Pyne’s office said it was working through the issue. Source: News Corp Australia

“Agents may find it easier to eschew top end students who have more opportunities and may be more costly and time consuming to recruit,” the report said.

“More generally, there is a concern that an over-reliance on agents for student recruitment is detrimental to the quality of Australian international education services,” the report says.

A spokesman for Education Minister Christopher Pyne said the government welcomed the report and the draft National Strategy for International Education released last month was already addressing the issues raised by the PC.

But Labor’s education spokesman Kim Carr said more needed to be done and the Opposition would be pursuing the issue in Senate estimates and potentially through a parliamentary committee.

“This is further evidence that the government needs to take a much firmer position on the use of international student agents,” Senator Carr said.

Changes ... Labor’s education spokesman Kim Carr said more needs to be done. Source: News Corp Australia

“While individual universities have a responsibility for their employment of individual agents, the Commonwealth government has a responsibility to protect Australia’s international reputation.”

Universities Australia chief executive Belinda Robinson said the report was in line with her organisation’s calls “for a more coordinated approach from government agencies in international education”.

She said international students remained “vitally important” to Australia’s universities.