|
|
 |
|
 |
 |
|
News article ( 18th Jun. 2010 )
Figures released in early June by the International Education Association of Australia show that the international education sector will face a downturn of approximately 100,000 students over the next year compared with the high point of 630,000 in 2009, with a consequent drop in Australia’s export income.
It will be ten years before the number of international students in Australia reaches 2009 levels of 630,000 students, and export income levels rebound.
Commenting on the April 2010 international student data released by the Australian Education International and the Department of Immigration and Community Affairs, Mr Stephen Connelly, President of the IEAA said that we are seeing the start of a rapid rationalisation and restructuring of Australia’s international student program.
Rapid growth in the 2000s in education as an export for Australia was unsustainable.
“There was a skewing of international education, away from a focus on delivering high quality Australian qualifications, towards an emphasis on education as a quick pathway to migration.
“While these problems have been focused on specific pockets in the private vocational education and training sector, the reputation of Australian education overall has been tarnished.
“In the 2000s, numbers of international student commencements in private vocational education and training doubled every two years, fueled by education as a shortcut to migration. Clearly, this was unsustainable,” Mr Connelly said.
“Perhaps the most telling indicator of an unbalanced education export sector has been the drop in the number of higher education students as a proportion of Australia’s international student program from 47 per cent in 2005 to 32 per cent in 2009.
“With Australia's reputation damaged, numbers of applicants are dropping, the student visa regime is toughening and more onerous requirements for skilled migration are putting a stop to education as a shortcut to migration - all this at a time when the Australian dollar has been at historically high levels.
“The policy levers being applied by the Australian Government are having an effect, as we would hope. Unfortunately, they are being applied without proper consultation with the education sectors,” Mr Connelly said.
“We now run the danger of overcompensating for past policy errors that the former Government paid scant attention to. We are beginning to see collateral damage to all education sectors.
“This seems to be being caused by largely uncoordinated policy actions by individual Government departments. Despite the rhetoric, the Government is still failing to achieve a whole-of-government approach to the international education sector.
“The sustainability of the international education sector over the longer term is obviously critical, but there appears to be no serious effort by Government to come to grips with this. The education sector is awaiting the release of COAG’s International Student Strategy, but indications are that the initiatives proposed by COAG are unlikely to be properly funded.
“We are eager to see what the COAG strategy budget details are before we can judge whether the Government is serious about supporting and investing in Australia’s international education sector,” Mr Connelly said.
Australia’s international education business models, particularly in higher education, and in pathways to higher education, including ELICOS, remain essentially sound, said Connelly.
By 2020 export income from international education is estimated to reach $22 billion in today’s prices.
Source/Author: IEAA Secretariat - www.ieaa.org.au
Published: 18th Jun. 2010 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
