Australia today said it will closely monitor Indian students' intake in the new academic year following a slew of attacks on the community that has affected the billion-dollar education industry here, even as it insisted it remains a "safe" destination to pursue studies.
"Obviously we are going to track the number of students coming to this country, including Indian students, as we are moving into the new academic year," Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard said.
She said it was important that students had accurate information when deciding whether to study in Australia.
"I can understand that if you were a family in India and you were sending your young person to some other country that you would be very, very focussed on how safe they are going to be when they were there," she was quoted as saying by the media here.
"This is why we have to try and get the message through that overwhelmingly Australia is a very safe place," Gillard said.
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She said the government had taken steps to ensure Australia continued to offer quality education to international students.
Gillard said she was not prepared to speculate at this stage of the academic year as to what might be student number.
"In very high numbers international students say they enjoy their time here, that they got the quality education and they would recommend Australia as a study destination," Gillard said.
Amid a string of attacks on Indians, the Immigration Department said recently that Australia experienced a huge 46 per cent decline in Indians applying for student visas in the country last year.
The total number of student visa applications from around the world also dropped by over 20 per cent.