Higher Education in Australia has experienced a huge drop in the South Asia student markets
Australia has been suffering from a loss of international students from South Asia to other countries such as Canada, the UK and the US. The industry experts predict that this trend will continue into 2022.
The two biggest groups of students contributing to the Australian economy in 2019-20 were students from China and India. According to the data from the Australian Department of Education, Higher education institutions experienced a 35% drop in new international students enrolling in July-November 2020, Chinese student enrolments decreased by 8% and Indian student enrolments more than 80%.
The big drop in enrolments of Indian students can be a combination of several factors. According to the president of the Association of Australian Education Representatives in India Ravi Lochan Singh, at the start of the pandemic, the interest in studying in Australia from Indian students was strong, with many students prepared to study online and not changing their study plans. The study visas were continuously being approved and that was an indication and hope for students from India that after a time of studying online, they will be able to return to Australia in 2021, but this did not happen and therefore many students turned to other destinations.
Mr Singh said: “There’s a general feeling of a lack of interest on the part of the government. The government doesn’t seem to be indicating anything positive for the students who are in the pipeline so they would obviously prefer a destination which is open like the UK or Canada or even the US,”
However, Singh also has sympathy for the position of Australian education providers and understands that they need to obey the government rules.
Another point made by Singh was that the decrease of the student numbers might be due to the tuition fees that were kept the same for studying online. According to a students survey only less than 10% of the students were willing to continue studying online for longer than 1 semester. It has taken some time for some HE institutions to offer reduced fees for online programmes such as the University of Adelaide.
As the borders are remaining closed for international students to travel to Australia the University of Adelaide has decided to offer a rebate of up to 20% for semester 1 this year to continuing and commencing eligible international students who are studying offshore and unable to travel to Australia due to border restrictions.
Australia’s position as an international educational destination needs to be backed up by a plan of return for the students in a safe manner as the continuous restrictions will have a further impact on HE institutions.
