Navigating International Legal Education in Australia: Chinese Law Students’ Challenges and Prospective Solutions

This article addresses two related questions: why Australian law schools struggle to attract many Chinese students, and what difficulties Chinese students face when they enrol in Australian universities’ law degree programmes. The article briefly reviews the literature on general challenges facing international and Chinese students in Australia, then analyses an online survey conducted by the authors directed at prospective and current Chinese law students. The results demonstrate that Australian law schools are falling short in making their courses relevant to Chinese and other non-common law international students, and assisting Chinese (and other non-English background) students to integrate smoothly into their law degrees. More broadly, universities are not providing adequate support for Chinese and international students to reduce their stress levels when studying law in Australia. The article concludes by proposing several measures that law schools must take if they wish to avoid serious reputational damage and ensure the well-being of this important student cohort. Such supportive measures will not merely facilitate Chinese students’ academic performance and reduce their failure rates, but will also give them practical experience of the crucial role that the rule of law plays in Australia to protect the rights of vulnerable groups in society.