Australia eyes Indian students

Australia has launched aggressive measures to increase its student enrollment from countries like India and China. Education is a $6 billion industry in Australia. Yet, it's facing a massive skills shortage in fields like construction, biotechnology, medicine and mining, and some fields of information technology.

To attract more students from India, it is taking several steps like holding roadshows to admit students on the spot, increasing scholarships and openeing more representative offices in India.

The country also sees India as an income generator because of the large number of students in India. According to Australian academicians, student visas issued to Indians has grown from only about 275 around 11-12 years ago to 16,000-18,000 annually in the last 3-4 years.

This year, they expect about 23,000-25,000 Indian student visas to be issued. At present, 32,000-plus Indian students are studying in Australia. An Australian survey predicts the number of Indian students in Australia is likely to go up to 80,000 annually by 2025.

According to director of IDP India Henry A S Ledlie, the number of Indian students staying back in Australia is going down because there are so many jobs available in India, "About four years ago, as many as 80-85 per cent of the students stayed back in Australia. Now about 60 per cent of the students stay back, which is a significant drop but the number of those staying back is still very high," he said.

Academicians say that though Chinese students outnumber the Indian students in Australia by a large number, Indian students often have an advantage because of their better knowledge of English. India is largely a post-graduate market, whereas they need more students at the undergraduate and the research level. Academicians say Australia is a better option for students as it is easier to get jobs in Australia and also because it is cheaper by about 40 per cent for students compared to countries like the UK or US.

"At the undergraduate level, it is easier for students to be integrated with the system. They can be taught according to the needs of the country," says a professor from the Monash University, who was here to enroll students for the university's biotechnology courses. "In the next five years, we will need about 25,000 professionals in biotechnology and there is no way that Australian students will be able to fill this requirenment. India, on the other hand, is a great place to get students for biotechnology," he adds.

Scholarships have also been increased for the research-based courses. Academicians say this is mainly because research is where all the ideas and innovation comes from. So it benefits the country and also because the students who come for higher studies are the ones more intent on staying back in the country and they also find it easier to get jobs.

Australian universities are also creating more specialised courses which are better suited for industry. "Often students would have studied information technology but they are not industry-ready. This is because they know their subject, but have no managerial skills whatsoever. For this purpose we have created courses which equip students with both managerial skills and technical knowledge," Vass Karpathiou, a senior lecturer from Australia's RMIT University, said.