Hi Class! This time I present data relevant to our previous classes – flow of international students in Asia.
This excel below shows from which country in Asia to which country (mostly OECD) students are enrolled abroad at a tertiary level. (e.g. 90245: number of Chinese students studying in Australia)
(Reference: OECD Statistics, http://stats.oecd.org/)
And not surprisingly, aside from U.S. and UK, this revealed one important country with regard to international students’ flow, which could be categorized into Asia but had not been covered by this particular class – Australia. I wanna focus on this country in this blog because I believe we cannot discuss students’ flow within Asian countries without referring to Australia.
Here are some excerpts from an interesting article elaborating difficult situation surrounding this country
“In 2015, there were 272,095 higher education international students in Australia who contributed almost A$12.5 billion to the economy.”
“In Australia, however, international students have few scholarship opportunities, and no local jobs specifically waiting for them after graduation.”
“One aspect of this discussion policymakers might want to consider is becoming host to satellite campuses from world-renowned universities. So far only Carnegie Mellon has an offshore campus in Australia. Having such satellite campuses creates not only diversity and internationalisation in the Australian higher education space, but also provides other benefits. These include more competitive choices of institutions on Australian soil, as well as greater opportunities for students to move between countries on exchange. Having top Asian universities set up campuses in Australia promotes increased flows of top students and staff. This would help strengthen Australia’s position in the region as a high-quality education hub.”
So here clearly we can see another type of dilemma – different from Japan (attracting foreign students into homogeneity), South Korea (getting out of brain drain), Hong Kong and Taiwan (aiming to become international hub in Asian HE). Maybe Australia’s situation is somewhat similar to Singapore, but still a lot of differences in terms of country size and its historical context etc.
Let us know any thoughts or comments. Thank you for reading!
(Reference: Rising players in higher education: the countries to watch out for)
http://theconversation.com/rising-players-in-higher-education-the-countries-to-watch-out-for-62964
Australia attracting international student has to count on its immigration policy and stable society (including safety and environmental factors) Australia is now the top immigration destination of Chinese population. There are at least over 15 types of immigration policy. I have looked into all to them myself. Most of them are based on a point system. Qualifying one requirement will grant you certain point. Finishing high school education in Australia always grand you bonus points and could be a huge help in the process of immigration. Some asian population wish to alter their residence location and obviously Australia would be a good destination due to its harmless social environment and beautiful weather.
Interesting point indeed. I agree that Australia is a major player in Asian students’ decision to abroad (I myself once considered going to Australia). FYI, NYU also opened a Sydney campus (http://www.nyu.edu/sydney.html) so Canergie Mellon is no longer the only US uni with presence in Aus. Compared to Canergie Mellon’s Australian curriculum that focuses on STEM (https://www.australia.cmu.edu/study), NYU Sydney’s curriculum focuses more on the arts and humanities (http://www.nyu.edu/sydney.html), which I think gives them more of a differential edge compared to STEM, which can be supplied readily by Asian universities. We have discussed in classes the switch to liberal arts focus of Asian universities, so Australia’s own unis perhaps can compare the Asian enrolment at CMU vs NYU to see which model they might want to adopt.
From the student’s perspective, I think that university rankings and education quality, cost and scholarship conditions, destination country safety, visas and working conditions are the factors which influence the decision of Chinese students. To some extent, Australia balances those factors. The Australia government also knows their advantages compared to the U.S. universities – focuses on medium grade Chinese students not the top ones. Moreover, the government noticed the trend that Chinese families send young children to study abroad. Australia revised its’ student visa requirements, allowing overseas study applications from middle and senior school students. These new student visas are attracting large numbers of students from all over the world, particularly among Chinese students. This has given the Australian education market and its related industries a huge boost.