The Age published an interesting article over the weekend showing that the number of Chinese students enrolling to study in Victoria has only fallen marginally since the coronavirus began:
What crash?
Chinese students have been willing to study remotely while Australia’s borders are closed…
Higher education enrolments from China to Victoria have declined 5.74 per cent in the 12 months to March, the most recent figures published by the Department of Education, Skills and Employment show, while commencements have declined just 0.67 per cent.
By contrast, enrolments from India have collapsed:
That’s more like it!
Enrolments from India fell 33 per cent, while commencements fell 56 per cent between March 2020 and March 2021.
Angela Lehmann, a researcher with international education consultancy firm Lygon Group… said that for Indian students in particular, an onshore education is valued for the opportunities it brings…
Indian Students’ Association of Victoria general secretary Amo Chakravarthy said a qualification from an Australian university was much less attractive to many Indian students if they could not live and work here while studying.
The truth is that the primary motivation for Indian students to study in Australia is to receive work rights and permanent residency. This was explicitly acknowledged by New Delhi-based education consultant Gauravdeep Bumra:
“Most Indian students choose to study abroad, often at the cost of thousands of dollars, because they have a long-term goal of getting permanent residency, be it in Australia, Canada or the UK. As a result, most students stuck offshore have deferred their studies instead of choosing to complete their degrees online”…
“The day they open their borders, the student intake numbers will uptick…”
Census data also showed that over three-quarters of Indian and Nepalese holders of student visas worked in the Australian labour force while studying in 2016:
Most Indian and Nepalese students pay for their studies by working in Australia.
In this regard, Chinese students bring far more genuine export earnings into Australia than students from India and Nepal. This is because money spent in Australia earned via working here is by definition not an export.
When it comes to students from India and Nepal, international education is more of a people importing industry than an export industry.
