Speak Out August 2021

STUDENT spotlight

By Brittany Fong Second year student - Masters of Speech Pathology in University of Melbourne December, December, this is the month to remember! See you in Australia before then, or else we’ll see you when 2022 ends. It has been a tumultuous two years for everyone since the dawn of COVID-19. I’m sure that you’ve heard and read many stories of this pandemic’s impact on parents, children, teachers, healthcare professionals, store owners, airlines, and lipstick companies. However, do you know the tale of the speech pathology students who are studying half of their Australian degree outside of Australia? No? Well, here’s their story. The title of this article is inspired by the name of one of of our Facebook chat groups. I’m in the chat with 11 other overseas students studying an Australian speech pathology (SP) degree. We’ve had this chat since the beginning of 2021, which is also the starting point of this story. In the chat, we mainly update each other on the latest news of individual travel exemptions into Australia. Australia closed its borders to non-residents on 20 March 20, 2020. Australian Government’s Bureau of Statistics calculated that the number of international arrivals reduced from 2.3 million to 21,000 from January to April of last year. Travel exemptions have been the only way to return to Australia and are continually being updated by the Department of Home Affairs. The 12 SP students are approaching the halfway point of their degrees and clenching their teeth in anticipation to return before December. Their university has requested that the overseas students return to Australia before then, or else, they defer their course. At this point, it’s a race against time. Fortunately, they have one saving grace: individual travel exemption #11. Department of Home Affairs lists out two important conditions: 1) a student must be in their last two years of an allied health degree, and 2) must have a confirmed placement in a medical setting starting within two months from the date of the student’s exemption application. Condition one, check. Condition two, to be confirmed. Through the sudden lockdowns and ever-changing restrictions, the student's placement coordinator has thankfully been able to source medical placements and See you in Australia!

Brittany Fong

provide well-written placement confirmation documents. Condition one, check. Condition two, check. Of the 12 SP students, four applied for an exemption, three were rejected, one was exempted. Now, let’s first diverge into the story arch of the exempted student, who we will call Carey. Carey is a Filipina student in her 20s, who is keen to change from working in the corporate world to working with children in healthcare. Before moving to a new country, she shared that it was difficult to make time to say farewell on such short notice, while balancing packing and booking flights. Carey has already finished her two-week quarantine and has moved into her accommodation. She is busy with her load of online studies, but grateful, that she is where she needs to be to pursue her career in speech pathology. The end of Carey’s story arch concludes very nicely. However, let’s backtrack to the three students with the rejected exemptions. They, along with the other eight overseas students in the Facebook chat, are waiting for the next chance to apply for an exemption. The opportunity to apply will be in a couple of months when the university assigns the next round of student placements. This will be the last chance to get an exemption this year. This is the story for now. This is one of the many stories of students’ lives who are affected by COVID-19. Given the ever-changing nature of the global pandemic, we continually adjust to the shifting conditions and deadlines. It’s an odd sensation. So much time is spent waiting, yet it feels like a race against time to return to Australia. Leaving behind the life in your country is dependent on an email from the Department of Home Affairs with the words “exempted”. Until then, we await that email. The 11 of us hope for it. We hope to see Carey. We hope to fly into Australia by December. More than that, we hope to continue our education so that we can become dedicated speech pathologists. We await the moment where we finally message into our Facebook chat group and know with all certainty that we’ll “see you in Australia!”

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Speak Out | August 2021