Vadodara students opt for Australia now

It's a trend that Vadodara based overseas education centres have been noticing from last fifteen months which has taken by surprise most of the professional counsellors.

A sudden growing inquisitiveness amongst the youth of Vadodara to choose Australia over other all time favoured destinations of United States of America and United Kingdom.

A steadily growing number of students from Vadodara and its surrounding areas like Kheda, Anand, Bharuch are now opting for Australian university for higher education.

Talking to Business Standard, Jasmine Gandhi, area manager of VIV's International Education Centre, Vadodara, said, "Currently, the US and UK government are spending more on war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan thus they are not able to spend more on development related activities in their own country."

Elaborating further he said that a country having more developmental activities creates more job opportunities for foreign students after they complete the course.

Most of the Indian students move to US and UK with a pre-plan to secure a job as soon their study is completed but it seems the US war on terror has spoiled most of the plans of the students.

"Australia is expanding its economy at a rapid pace, creating new opportunities for the Indian youth to grab," said Gandhi. Along with this the cost of studies in Australia is nearly 50 percent less than that of US and UK study cost.

Amit Jalan, director of Enbee Education Centre, Vadodara said, "The rising demand by Australia for high skilled and fresh talent to energise is own economic growth is attracting students from here."

The Australian government is making attempts to build up its strength in manufacturing sectors. Traditionally, Australia has three major sectors, minerals, tourism and education.

With more emphasis being laid on the manufacturing sectors the demand for more skilled human resource is rapidly rising. "Sensing this students are looking towards Australia as land of opportunity," said Jalan.

He further said there is unparalleled optimism amongst the students, something that wasn't the cases before. Moreover now the students are no longer thinking that they have to live within prescribed limits, he informs. This is a radical departure from the past.

Rupal Dalal, manager of Planet education-Vadodara, agrees that one of the main attractions amongst the students is the better job prospect in Australia currently which has very high economic growth rate.

She said, "A minuscule part of the Australia has developed up till now and currently the Australian government is developing new region in western part of the country."

She further said, "For the regional growth the country need huge human resources and thus increases chances for the Indian students go get absorbed."

According to experts, the ratio of student opting for Australia upon other countries is 8:10. For the year 2005-06, approximately 21000 students from Gujarat has gone abroad for studies out of which 3000 student have opted for Australia. Of this, about 500 opted for Australia from Vadodara, said experts.