international education
campusreview.com.au
at GCA largely enjoy studying in Australia.
The reasons for this are twofold: study
recruitment agents have a vested interest
in ensuring they’re happy, and, like most
cultural groups, they socialise and find
comfort in each other’s company.
The only real wobble GCA has
experienced, apart from growing pains,
was when the series of scandals in
vocational education occurred in 2016,
where several shonky providers were
outed by the media.
“All of Australia suffered,” Manly explains.
“Talking to Austrade people, even [in terms
of the] credibility of the brand ‘Australia’.”
While the VET sector is still in recovery
mode, other higher education providers
are now facing reputational challenges
as, among other things, youth
unemployment remains high. Manly is
unfazed by this.
“If you can find a period of time that
industry was happy with the product that
the universities produced, I would look
forward to hearing about it,” he says.
“I don’t think the education systems
have ever really failed. They’ve produced
educated individuals.”
Alan Manly. Photo: Phil Hillyard, News Corp Australia
Regardless, GCA doesn’t track its
students, post-graduation, so he
doesn’t know whether it produces
employable graduates. Anecdotally,
he claims many GCA graduates return
to their home countries to work in
family businesses.
So, what’s next for GCA? Sadly, not a
degree in zoology, Manly says.
“The most popular course on earth, in
higher ed, is the MBA … The only thing
Favoured nation
Australia predicted to overtake UK
in international student market.
A
ustralia is likely to overtake the
UK to become the second
most popular destination
globally for international students, a new
report suggests.
In fact, it may already be the case.
The UCL Institute of Education (IOE)
paper used standardised UNESCO data
to investigate incoming tertiary students
across the most popular international
student destination countries between
2011 and 2016. It also tracked trends in
individual countries after that period.
Lead author Professor Simon
Marginson, from the Centre for Global
I think our company has credibility in
the market for is [teaching would-be]
entrepreneurs.”
Although he is considering creating GCA
branches in other states, ultimately he’s
unsure in which direction he will take the
college next.
With signature candour, he notes that he
doesn’t “believe entrepreneurs really know
what they’re doing”.
“I think,” he says, “they just get inspired.” ■
Higher Education at the IOE, said the
world is seeing a “seismic shift” in the
student market.
Marginson said: “In 2016, Australia
surpassed the UK in the number of students
from outside Europe it attracted. Australian
numbers are growing at 12–14 per cent a
year, while the UK is standing still.”
He added there’s a possibility 2018 data
will show Australia has already passed the
UK in total international student numbers.
“It looks certain Australia will be world
number 2 by 2019, with the UK falling to
number 3.”
The UK government has held down the
growth of international student numbers
for five years by limiting numbers and
post-study work visas, Marginson said.
Meanwhile, competitor nations are heavily
promoting their international education.
Brexit will also make a major dent in
student numbers, with rates of those
coming from other European countries
predicted to slow.
Should this happen, Marginson
predicted that Germany, the Netherlands
and France are the EU countries most
likely to see increased international
student numbers in the future. ■
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