The number of Australian student visa applications from China rose 22% from last year. (Web Photo)
According to the Times higher Education Network, interest in coming to Australia has been growing recently, especially in China, an important market for Australian education exports, where the number of applications for Australian student visas has soared. This broke once again Australia`s education export industry is weakening the "unknown prophecy".
Although the demand for overseas students to study in Australia did not fluctuate much earlier this year. In April, the number of applicants to study in Australia finally began to pick up, with applications for student visas up 20 percent from last year.
The number of Chinese applications for Australian student visas rose 22%. Among them, the number of applicants to university increased by 14%, while Chinese interest in vocational education in Australia has doubled.
The data showed that while interest in international education in Australia had been modest in the previous two months, it had not stagnated. The number of visa applications for foreign students in February and March was roughly the same as last year, while the number of applications by Chinese students fell slightly in February.
A number of Australian universities are worried that the number of Chinese students enrolled in the country will continue to decline. These overseas students bear the cost of activities other than teaching in the form of "cross-subsidization", especially at the research-based universities of (Group of Eight) members of Australia`s eight-School Alliance.
Australia`s education export industry is booming, with the number of international students enrolled in January-March up 7 percent from a year earlier and the number of Chinese students up 10 percent, the Ministry of Education`s admissions figures show. In Australia`s higher education sector, the number of Chinese students has increased by 15%.
Forbes (Dean Forbes), former vice president of (Flinders University) at Flinders University, now works for private institutions of higher education. "this is a steady progress made," he said, adding that "no one wants to miss the Chinese market", he said, adding that enrolment has increased unabated over the past few years.
However, while visa data suggest that interest from Chinese students in Australia is still growing, the growth appears to be uneven. It is rumored that the number of Chinese students enrolled in some major urban education institutions has "plummeted". At the same time, Sino-Australian relations have become tighter recently.
But Forbes said that Australian society is concerned about the "penetration of China`s influence," We always have the opportunity to exaggerate the situation, I think Australia is going this way. "
