Australia’s education sector, which generated A$39 billion ($27.66 billion) in export earnings before the pandemic, has strong ties to China, with roughly 150,000 nationals enrolled in Australian universities. Tens of thousands remain offshore after pandemic restrictions and strained diplomatic relations led many to return home.
But with three weeks to go before Australian universities start, the Chinese Ministry of Education’s Chinese Service Center for Scholarly Exchange (CSCSE) said on Saturday it would no longer recognise overseas degrees obtained via online learning and urged students to return to overseas campuses as soon as possible.
“At present, the borders of major destinations for international study have reopened, and foreign (overseas) colleges and universities have fully resumed offline teaching,” it said in a statement.
China dropped nearly all of its COVID curbs in December, leading to a surge in COVID cases and deaths as Beijing shifted…
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