international education
campusreview.com.au
on the country students originate from.
By spreading awareness about these
opportunities across additional markets,
education providers can help grow their
numbers across multiple locations.
EDUCATION ROADSHOWS
Time to hedge our bets
The Australian education sector needs to
diversify its increasing reliance on China.
By Mark Fletcher
T
he relationship between Australia
and China has been in the media
for a range of reasons lately, with
reports claiming that China’s ruling party
has been meddling in Australia’s media,
universities and political and legal systems.
These stoushes have spilled over into
trade discussions between the two nations
across a number of industries – including
international education.
With a record 232,000 Chinese citizens
studying in Australia in 2017, a number
which has grown by 54 per cent since
2013, Chinese students make up 28.9 per
cent of all international enrolments. While
the outlook is positive, this dominance
by China has created concern within the
education sector about the potential
financial risk should the market experience
a downturn, or if, for example, the Chinese
or Australian governments decide to
restrict the student flow into Australia.
Charles Sturt University’s Professor Clive
Hamilton even noted that if universities
were a company, there would be serious
questions asked of their CEO around their
reliance on one ‘risky’ market.
There are, however, ways for the
international education sector to diversify.
With students studying in Australia coming
from across the globe, education providers
can move away from their reliance on
China in three ways.
SCHOLARSHIP SCHEMES
With a plethora of scholarships available for
students wanting to study in Australia, there
are a number of ways to encourage student
growth within both small and emerging
markets. Many federal government
scholarships, like the Australia Awards and
Endeavour Scholarships and Fellowships,
are available to students studying across
all degree levels, and for students coming
from selected countries in the Asia-
Pacific region, Africa and the Middle East.
In addition to this, institution-specific
scholarships don’t often place restrictions
With international education being
Australia’s third-largest export, many state
and federal governments are running trade
delegations and roadshows to showcase
the quality of Australia’s education
providers and the value they can bring to
international students. For the remainder of
2018 alone, Austrade has Future Unlimited
education roadshows planned for countries
including Papua New Guinea, Mongolia,
Japan and Korea, and in many instances
education providers are able to attend.
Discovering these opportunities opens
up a world of networking opportunities
for leaders within the sector to get on
the ground of emerging markets and
engage with students who may not have
considered studying in Australia in the past.
NURTURING GROWING MARKETS
In 2017, the number of students from
Columbia, Sri Lanka, Spain, Bangladesh and
Saudi Arabia enrolled to study in Australia
grew by double digits. After China, the four
top nationalities for enrolments – India,
B