Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD/SYDNEY: China’s abrupt opening of borders has created problems for its students, pursuing education in foreign countries, including in Australia.
For Zoey Zhang, a student from China heading to a famous Australian university, finding accommodation has been so tough that she even considered sleeping “rough on the streets.”
Like Zhang, 700,000 students from Beijing enrolled to study abroad have been left in the lurch after the surprise January announcement by China that said the students would have to return to foreign countries for their education to be recognised as foreign graduates back home.
Students of China
China’s sudden lifting of restrictions has triggered the rush for accommodation as housing markets grapple with surging rents globally. But the issue is more acute in Sydney because its academic year starts in February, unlike in September in other European countries and North America.
Zhang said she “went into panic mode” as rules changed after three years of Covid border closures. It means that she and about 40,000 other students heading to Australia would be looking for a place to stay.
“I knew finding a rental in Australia won’t be easy, but I did not expect it to be this difficult. Some are subletting their living rooms and balconies. I do not think I can do that,” Zhang said via telephone from her home in the eastern Chinese province of Shandong.
“I’ve been looking for a room for about a month now, and I’ve given up,” added Zhang, who had enrolled for a master’s degree in marketing at the University of New South Wales. “If I get desperate, I could sleep rough on the streets, like under a bridge, and outside the Chinese consulate in Sydney.”
