Australia experiences a steep decline in Indian Student enrolment

Australia, an otherwise popular country amongst immigrants has been facing a series of challenges on this front in the last few years.

2010 was the year when Australia caught the attention of the world for racial discrimination and attacks on Immigrant students, especially Indian students.
After this episode Australian colleges discouraged mass rejection of applications coming from international students.

Australia has seen a decline in the number of Indian students’ enrollment. However, attacks are not the sole cause; legislative changes and financial crisis all over the world are major factors.

In the last financial year there was a drop by 16% in the global student visa. In 2008-09, more than 65,000 Indians students were given visas whereas by 2009-10 the number fell down to less than 30,000 which were reduced by more than 50% in compared to the previous year.

Stephen Cornelly, president of International Education Association of Australia is not surprised by the decline but the issue concerns them.

Stephen Cornelly also says, “There is so much good will we generate from having international students in our country. We are absolutely shooting ourselves in the foot at the moment.”
He also opines that negative signals were given by the government to potential students during the campaigning of federal elections.

Cornelly warns of a further drop even the situation is not handled well. He suggests to have a deep look at the number of applications coming to the concerned offices and agents from international students.

Experts in this area strongly feel that the international students need to be secured and any attack on them should be condemned and treated strongly.

Drakeford, President of National Union of Students says, “International student decline is dangerous for the university sector not only due to funding reasons but also due to the value international students bring to Australia.”

The government and universities together have to work out to improve the number of international students coming to Australian Universities so that the population is not a lopsided one. There has to be an attempt to make the same a multicultural one. Otherwise, not only Indian students but even students coming from other parts of the world will also be uncomfortable coming here. They will look for more options and all the potential students may move to the other counterparts of Australia.