Indian students prefer Australia over the UK

As the September intake of students in universities abroad begins, more and more Indian students "�second only to the Chinese in going abroad for education "� are finding their way to Australia.

It has replaced the UK as the second most-sought-after destination for education by Indian students.

According to John Webb, counsellor for education, science and training, the last six years have witnessed a huge spurt in the number of students going from India to Australia.

"The last count for December 2006 is around 39,662 students, which is second only to the nearly 60,000 students who travel to Australia from China," he said.

So large is the number of students seeking education in Australia that the country became the first country to not only allow universities from Australia to have agents in India, authenticated by the High Commission, but have also have outsourced the visa procedure to a private firm.

Coming back to the kind of courses that Indian students are going in for, Webb says the "classic combination" that Australian universities see out of India are engineers and information technology graduates who are taking business management courses.

"This segment is growing at a steady 9 per cent a year, and forms 65 per cent of the Indian students intake," says Webb.

The upcoming sectors, according to him, are nursing, tourism and hospitality which are growing at 20 per cent a year. But what really is the "hot" subject according to Webb is the biotechnology sector, which can see not just traffic from India to Australia but the other way around.

"The biotechnology sector in India has a great future not just through indigenous research but is also fuelled by the nearly 200 or so private units set up by multinational corporations," he said.

In fact a $14 million science and technology grant fund, set-up when Australian Prime Minister Howard visited India, is expected to provide scholarships for research in science.

Webb admits Australia has a long way to go before competing with the US, but considering that Australia is far smaller in terms of population than the US, he says it holds more advantages.