Implementing Change: Australian University Management Report

This report examines the necessary changes within Australian universities to enhance the educational experience, particularly for international students. It emphasizes the importance of separate induction and orientation programs to facilitate cultural integration and improve student retention. The report explores areas needing change, such as adapting to cultural diversity and implementing innovative strategies to attract and support international students. It discusses the reasons for these changes, including the globalization of education and the need to maintain Australia's position as a leading destination for international students. The report also covers approaches to change, such as well-structured induction strategies and the application of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, as well as addressing potential resistance to change. Effective communication and future implications of educational development are also discussed, highlighting the benefits for both students and universities. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of these changes for economic development and the overall success of the Australian higher education system.

Running head: MANAGEMENT
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Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Areas where change is required.................................................................................................3
Reason for change......................................................................................................................4
Approaches to change in education system...............................................................................6
Aversion to change.....................................................................................................................7
Effective communication...........................................................................................................8
Future implication of the education development......................................................................8
References................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
The report mainly focuses on the educational change that needs to be implemented in
Australian Universities to make the educational system more efficient and by which the
internationalization of education will increase in Australian Universities. It is evident that
Australian Universities are well recognized for providing higher education to students all
across the world. The Universities are globally recognized for cultural diversity, impressive
educational programs, friendly native, and many more career opportunities programs that are
beneficial for students for their career development. Australia assumes to be one of the best
destinations for students across the world. Australia is assumed to be the third popular
destination for international students in the English speaking world behind UK and US. Many
students all over the world are interested in pursuing their higher education in Australian
Universities because of the high quality of education that is given in the colleges. The higher
education universities in Australia tries to seek internationalization and raise the enrolments
of overseas students as obtaining student experience is vital for making sure a sustainable
future by exhibiting quality learning, increasing the standard of English language, and
ensuring retention of enrolments (Perez-Encinas & Ammigan, 2016). The orientation and
induction programs are must for all international students are essential to capture student
voice for better understanding of the challenges that students will face during their early stage
in the universities. Each Australian Universities must follow the Good Practice Principle
(GPP) so that the management of the organization can easily understand the values of the
international students and can even examine the current services that are provided by the
colleges (Ashton-Hay, 2016). Even though induction programs are organized by all
universities for all the students at the beginning of the educational program. However, all
universities need to conduct an orientation and induction program for the international
students to make them aware about the cultural diversity of the country and to make them

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understand that what all the skills and knowledge they need to develop to achieve success in
their academic career. The report will analyze why the induction and orientation activities are
more important for international students those are taking admission in the Australian
Universities.
Areas where change is required
It is extremely important for a student to be adaptive to the environmental changes
and to become familiar with the cultural diversity of the place in which one is going to start
the higher education program that will ultimately affect their future career development.
Taking admission in Australian Universities for pursuing higher education is not enough, but
to excel in the academic course is the most vital thing that one student needs to keep in mind.
The Australian Universities are well aware that various international students are interested in
taking admissions in the universities and are attracted towards the quality education of the
colleges. It is the prime responsibility of the universities to frame policies and regulations that
prove to be beneficial for international students; even the organization must ensure that
international students become familiar to the environment and culture so that they can
comfortably carry on their studies in an efficient manner (Perez-Encinas & Rodriguez-
Pomeda, 2018). In this globally competitive world if the Australian Universities wants to
continue their leading position in field of education system, then it is essential that the
organizations need to implement some innovative strategies that will help to the universities
to attract more international students thus increasing the economic development of the
country. Organizing an orientation and induction program, especially for international
students, will help the educational organization to discuss all the relevant information is that a
student’s needs to start their life in Australia. Since the 21st century, the number of
international students has grown immensely. As per the Organization for Economic Co-
operation and Development (OECD) in 2000, total number of students who enrolled in

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foreign universities for pursuing their higher education was two million, and by 2012, the
ratio had increased to four and a half million, reflecting an average annual growth of almost
7% (Riaño & Piguet, 2016). Nowadays, many universities are globalization approach for
international education and attracting students towards their organization for pursuing higher
studies. In this case, the organization needs to understand the mindset of the students as they
belong to different cultural diversity and has different norms and values related to educational
programs. The educational organizations are well aware that their reputation is directly linked
with the students, and there must be clarity in the rules and regulation that must be followed
by each student. International students need to give extra guidance, as they are new to the
educational environment of Australia and even unfamiliar to the educational norms and
policies of the Australian Universities (Ingvarson et al., 2014). The induction programs will
be useful for students to dispel any anxiety by providing all necessary information that each
new students needs as well as answering all queries of students. No doubt, Australian
Universities are excellent at providing high-quality education both in terms of academic and
vocational field (Gale & Parker, 2014). However, if the universities want to increase the
enrolments of international students, then the organizational institution must implement
specific induction and orientation activities for the international students at the beginning of
the session thus establishing a comfortable zone with the students those are new to the
environment. The inductions programs are essential as to know the education trend of the
universities and this activity is beneficial for both the student as well for the university.
Reason for change
The main reason for a change in the education system is that one separate induction
and orientation program must be organized for all international student so that the
globalization of international education can be maintained and increased by the universities.
Australia’s higher education has played a crucial part in growth and development of

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country’s economic, social, cultural, and intellectual development. Even government of the
country is funding various universities for higher education in country. The students usually
move to abroad for pursuing their higher education to improve their future earnings (Beine,
Noël & Ragot, 2014). Even the international student mobility approach can be taken into
consideration that will reflect various reasons why students choose to study in abroad for
completing their higher educational studies. Australia educational organizations have vast
opportunities for attracting numerous international students as Australia has a higher
education program called Oversea Student Program (OSP) that was mainly planned for
providing opportunities to international students those who come to Australia for higher
studies. Conducting induction and orientation program for all students are extremely common
for almost all educational institution; however, organizing a separate induction activity for an
international student must be implemented by the Australian Universities (Skyrme& McGee,
2016). This will ensure that the student is well aware of all the relevant information that
he/she needs to follow during their course work and even the management of the organization
can know about the student persistence with their studies and engenders a sense of
institutional belongings. Induction programs play a vital role in student retention (Treagust et
al., 2015). The implementation of separate induction and orientation program for an
international student must be carried on by all universities to exhibit the first impression of
the educational organization to students and to evaluate that whether the student would be
satisfied with their selected degree program and university. Even this induction activity will
give clarity regarding the understanding of the student related to the educational norms and
policies of the organization and whether the student is well prepared to start his/her
educational career in a new environment (Krause & Armitage, 2014). The management of the
educational organization can get clarity about the strength and weakness of student, and the
professors can accordingly guide the student as per the requirement. The educational

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organization needs to understand that each student needs to be productive, as the reputation
of the university will be reflected by their student performance and growth in their career.
The reason for a separate induction program for an international student is must because of
the cultural differences that the student is going to face during his/her course work. The
organization must implement specific innovative strategies in their educational programs by
which the students feel comfortable and concentrate on their studies, thus establishing an
impressive career for their future.
Approaches to change in education system
In general, view induction program starts with recruitment and paves the way for
continuous development. This program helps international students to become socialized into
the organization. The orientation programs would help the overseas students to established
social ties and friendship with the management of the organization, thus, becoming familiar
with the environment of the university (Fenton-Smith et al., 2017). In this report, we are
emphasizing why induction activities are essential for overseas students and what all the
practices that need to be followed by an educational organization to make the induction
program more effective (Tran & Dempsey, 2017). A well-structured induction strategy must
be organized by each university so that it can help promote the integration of students to their
academic life to reduce any kind of culture shock. It is the responsibility of the educational
institution to guide a student in their course work and to ensure them that they have chosen
the right university and degree program. Even the management needs to make sure that the
student remains until the end of their degree. Induction activities will help the students to
cope up with the cross-cultural adjustment and can overcome their culture shock (Hwang,
Martirosyan & Moore, 2016). In the entire implementation process, the management can use
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory for efficiently conducting the induction program. The
research theory will be extremely helpful in the research hypothesis. The different parts of the

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theory are essential for identifying the functions and responsibilities that students need to
adapt to moving towards reaching the highest possible achievements human can accomplish.
Student retention strategy is one of the significant factors that need to be addressed in the
orientation program and needs to be addressed during the time of recruitment stage. It is the
responsibility of the educational institution to give a clear idea about exactly what the
university offers in terms of education and how the student can excel in their academic career
by gaining skills and knowledge related to their selected degree program (Hammersley‐
Fletcher & Hanley, 2016). The induction activity must be a type of problem-solving learning
program for overseas students. Various researches have been conducted on
internationalization of education system, and it has been propounded that social system plays
a vital part in whether or not a student could integrate into university system and into a social
context that goes with being a student. Researchers claimed that during an induction program,
students could meet and socialize with each other (Darling-Hammond, 2017). Therefore, the
management of the educational institution must ensure that overseas student’ needs to be
encouraged during the orientation activity, and the program must not only focus on academic
information.
Aversion to change
The implementation of the innovative strategies related to induction and orientation
program for overseas students will be extremely beneficial for both students and universities;
however, there might be some resistance in the management relating to this program. Some
members of the management might think that a common induction program will be sufficient
enough for the introduction session and organizing a separate orientation program is not
required at it will only result in loss of time and efforts (Belford, 2017). Even for conducting
an extra induction activity needs some extra costs and some faculties have a mindset that
addressing all students at the same induction program will be beneficial for the organization,

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rather conducting different induction program. Especially teachers could resist as they think
that their differentiating between local and international students might not be acceptable by
all the members of the organization (Abu-Alhija & Fresko, 2016). Local students might
develop a feeling of sense that overseas students are given extra importance and guidance,
thus, leading to conflict between students. It is the responsibility of the top authorities of the
management to ensure that clarity must be given to all members of the organization and all
students regarding the induction program (Le, 2015). It must be well-explained that
implementation of the program is not organized to make any differences between the students
rather the induction program is to help international students adapt to cultural diversity that is
required for smooth functioning of the educational activities during the entire course work.
Effective communication
Before heading towards implementing any new strategy in an educational
organization, clear communication must be there within all levels of the organization. As to
make any strategy successful, all the levels of the organizations need to show a cooperative
attitude and must together work towards achieving the ultimate objective (Killam, 2017).
When there are overseas, students, problems generally manifest themselves in cultural
diversities. Some of the integration problems must be issued by the management in the
induction program such as unfamiliar with language and society in general, poor language
skills preventing cultural integration, having to be independent, poor assistance in how to
cope with the different culture, and many more that needs adequate attention for smooth
functioning of educational activities.
Future implication of the education development
Orientation strategies would help to have a more structured technique in future.
Induction and orientation program will bring together all members of the staff that are

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engaged with the first-year students such as student counsellor, student affair officer, virtual
studies coordinator, and many more members associated with the international students
(Mabbett, 2018). Each of the group has certain duties to make sure that students get essential
academic and vocational information to help them to begin and continue their studies. It is
decided that more help will be provided to international students, particularly concerning
administrative procedures. It is even being decided that strategies will be made for
implementing induction program for parents by which they can get clear ideas about the
norms and policies of the universities in which their children are going to pursue their higher
education studies.

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References
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Ashton-Hay, S. A. (2016). International student transitioning experiences: Student
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Beine, M., Noël, R., & Ragot, L. (2014). Determinants of the international mobility of
students. Economics of Education review, 41, 40-54.
Belford, N. (2017). International students from Melbourne describing their cross-cultural
transitions experiences: culture shock, social interaction, and friendship
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