Foreign students 'graduating with poor English'

More than one-third of foreign students graduating from Australian universities, mainly Asians, have such poor English skills they should never have been admitted, according to a study released yesterday.

The paper by demographer Bob Birrell found that more than 50 percent of South Korean and Thai students did not have sufficient English to work professionally in Australia, along with more than 43 percent of Chinese graduates.

Some 17 percent of students from Singapore and India, where English is more widely spoken, also failed to reach the required level, Birrell found.