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Together with Canada, the UK and the US, Australia is one of the most active countries in promoting education export and recruiting international students with international education as the country's biggest and most successful services export 'industry'. However, staff capacity building in international education has not been adequately invested. In research, while the teaching and learning of international students is a topic of growing popularity, the professional development (PD) and capacity building for teachers, who play a crucial role in the internationalisation of education and in particular, in supporting the learning of international students, has been left largely unexplored. This article responds to this critical gap in the literature by examining the nature of teacher professional development practices in international education. The findings of the research shows that, at the individual and institutional levels, teacher self-positioning of their PD needs and other positioning of the institutional PD provision seem to reveal the internal contradictions and tensions within institutions that work against the principles of responsive learning and teaching relative to international students' needs and expectations. The article calls for more support and investment in teacher professional development tailored to their needs to operate, teach and learn effectively in a context of increased internationalisation.

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The redesign of the Australian vocational education and training (VET) sector in the early 1990s changed the way the sector has been traditionally structured, organised and most importantly financed and delivered. This VET policy change led to a market model of education and a subsequent increase in the participation of private VET providers and international students in the sector. This article draws on the study of situated realities influencing international students in private VET providers in Melbourne Australia, to show through students' narratives, the consequences for international students' participation and how their outcomes were influenced. It also draws on the notion of social structure as systems of human relations amongst social positions to show that while international students' educational outcomes are complex, the market model of education constitutes the mechanisms, resources, powers and constraints that motivate them to act in the way they do.

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The reconstruction of the Australian vocational education and training (VET) sector into a competitive training market, which led to the participation of international students and commercial for-profit private VET providers, has until recently focused on the importance of international students to the national economy whilst ignoring the students' important educational characteristics and the other benefits that accrue to Australia. Drawing on views and perspectives of students, teachers, training managers and quality assurance auditors, this article presents an analysis of the VET provider-level processes, which have contributed to limited discursive constructions of the identities of international students in private VET providers in Melbourne. It argues that there is an urgent need for a rethinking of the way international students are conceptualised and represented in the competitive training market environment.

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Since the introduction of the competitive vocational education and training market model in the Australia in the 1990s, the growth and participation of international students and private providers has led to sustained debates about training standards in commercial-for-profit, private registered training organisations. Much of this debate has been negative and critical, focusing on providers seen as 'dodgy' and international students' permanent residence 'PR' reasons for participating in the Australian vocational education and training sector (Smith, 2010; Tran and Nyland, 2013). This article argues that this focus has limited critical debates on other contextual factors, particularly the influence of teacher perceptions on learning experiences and the way vocational education and training is understood and practised.

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In recent years governments have legitimated neoliberal educational policy reforms such as the internationalization and commercialization of education through mobilizing the discourses of globalization and the knowledge economy. In Australia, for instance, a raft of policy initiatives over the last two and a half decades (beginning in the early 1990s) targeted full-fee paying international students prompting a surge in international student enrolments and a burgeoning private vocational education and training (VET) sector for international students. Drawing on a study of situated realities influencing international students in private VET providers in Melbourne, Australia, this chapter analyzes, from training managers' and quality assurance auditors' perspectives, the impact of international student mobility on the private VET sector. This chapter also utilises the notion of social structure as systems of human relations amongst social positions to examine how international student mobility has led to shifts in VET manager and quality assurance auditors' perceptions and practices outside the boundaries of the education sector, particularly how private VET providers and international students are represented. In this instance by reforming the VET sector, governments change conventional characteristics through which people relate and the relationships that bind them with intended and unintended consequences. The findings suggest that whilst VET policy posits an easy and ready association between the needs of capital and the development of the workforce, this association is highly contestable and problematic as it can lead to negative student learning outcomes.

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This article argues that the adoption of the competitive Vocational Education and Training (VET) markets in Australia resulted in shifts in institutional perceptions and practices. Using situated experiences and perspectives from quality assurance auditors, training managers, international students and VET teachers from seven commercial for-profit private VET institutions in Melbourne, Australia, the article suggests that there are emerging patterns of institutionalised market-based relationships, which can have long-term implications for pedagogy, learning and international students’ outcomes in VET.

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The commercialisation of education and the massive recruitment of international students across different vocational education and training (VET) systems including the US, UK, Canada and Australia have led to significant changes in the VET teaching and learning landscape. This situation compels the VET sector to design and develop new professional development programs to support the immediate and changing needs of teachers working with the diverse international student cohort. However, to date, teacher professional development in response to the growing population of international students has not been an explicit focus of empirical study and theoretical conceptualisation in VET research. This study responds to this paucity. It draws on a broader three-year research project funded by the Australian Research Council (2014-2017) that involves fieldwork, participation in and observation of staff professional development activities and interviews with 102 VET staff in Australia. It uses positioning theory as a conceptual framework to examine how VET teachers position themselves and their professional development needs in response to international students. The results call for a critical need to re-examine the focus of the current professional development programs offered for VET teachers. The current context requires teacher professional development in international VET to focus on developing teachers' capabilities to re-examine their pedagogical beliefs and practices and to understand international students' various needs and cultural backgrounds. The study also stresses the importance of ongoing professional learning to equip teachers with the skills and knowledge to appropriate their pedagogical practices in response to the critical need to prepare all students for the intercultural labour market and to use students' diversity as a resource for teaching and learning.

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