Number Of Foreign Students Rising In Australia

11 Dec 2013

For the first time this year, the number of foreign students in higher education pushed higher.

For the year to October, enrolments show a modest increase of 863 people on the same period last year, indicating an encouraging surge in new student numbers since March.

International Education Association of Australia’s Phil Honeywood said they have been talking about the road to recovery in colleges for some time, and it is reassuring to see that the higher education sector’s hard work is now paying off.

He hoped the promising trend will be proved with the impending release of the immigration department’s figures for student visa in the September quarter. The offshore visa statistics aim at the future while the AEI (Australian Education International) data captures latest commencements and enrolments.

For the year to October in the AEI data, the English college sector which is a primary source of students for higher education, displayed stable growth with an increase of almost 20% to 101,667 in enrolments.

Vocational training and education stayed in a slump; both new student numbers and enrolments were down.

Enrolment from India is continuing to grow strongly with an increase of 31.7% to 15,846, surpassing the general No. 2 market - Malaysia (14,945).

Collectively, enrolments for higher education from the neighboring countries of Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan amounted to 32,502 which is a raise of 25.4% on the year to October 2012.

However, courtesy of the SVP (Streamlined Visa Process), many students from Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Pakistan, China and Vietnam are arriving in Australia and jumping to cheaper private colleges which are outside that visa process.

A spokesman for Scott Morrison said that irrespective of SVP arrangements, if any student wants to change their study course during the validity of their existing visa and if the new course is in a separate education sector, they must apply for a new student visa.