AEI International Student Data YTD June 2008

The year-to-date (YTD) June 2008 AEI International Student Data shows there were 392 632 enrolments by full-fee paying international students in Australia on a student visa. This is a 19.3 per cent increase on YTD June 2007. Commencements in the same period grew by 25.2 per cent.  

Nationality

Enrolments
The main source of Australia’s international students is the Asian region. Four of every five (80.2%) international student enrolments at onshore educational institutions were from the Asian region.

Eight of the top ten countries recorded increases in enrolments between YTD June 2007 and YTD June 2008.  India recorded the largest increase with 23 192 more enrolments than the corresponding period in 2007, a 55 per cent growth.  Other top ten markets that grew strongly were China (growth of 19.0%), Nepal (142.7%) and Vietnam (62.0%).

Enrolments from Japan and Hong Kong continue to decline steadily in all sectors. The decline in the Japan market has mainly been in the English Language Intensive Courses for Overseas Students (ELICOS). Declines were also noted in the Higher Education (HE) and the Vocational Education and Training (VET) sectors. The decline in enrolments from the Hong Kong market has mainly been in the higher education sector.

Outside the top ten, countries with strong growth include Saudi Arabia (142.4%), Brazil (28.2%), Colombia (48.4%), Pakistan (37.8%) and Sri Lanka (20.0%). Other significant markets such as Taiwan, the United States of America (USA) and Singapore continued to record falls in enrolments.

International student enrolments by nationality (top 10 markets), YTD June 2008

Commencements
The growth in the number of commencements between YTD June 2007 and YTD June 2008 was 25.2 per cent.  India recorded the largest increase with 10 601 more commencements than the corresponding period in 2007 (a growth of 59.1%), just ahead of China which recorded 9,512 more commencements (31.2% growth) in the same period.

Commencements from India in the higher education sector grew by 1.6 per cent compared with 89.1 per cent in the VET sector.  In comparison, growth in commencements from China was more evenly spread with 18.2 per cent in higher education and 39.4 per cent in VET.

Other top ten markets for commencements to show growth include Nepal (growth of 93.8%), Vietnam (87.4%), Brazil (33.0%), Thailand (14.4%) and Malaysia (12.0%). Among the other top ten countries, the Republic of Korea and Hong Kong recorded growth of less than three per cent, and the USA experienced a decline in commencements of 3.1 per cent.

Outside the top ten, markets such as Saudi Arabia (growth of 168.7%), Colombia (37.6%), Indonesia (17.5%), Mauritius (95.0%) and Pakistan (37.7%) have shown growth in commencements. 

International student commencements by nationality (top 10 markets), YTD June 2008

Sector

Higher Education
In YTD June 2008, the highest proportion of international student enrolments were in the Higher Education sector (38.3%).  Enrolments increased 2.7 per cent while commencements increased 10.1 per cent compared with the corresponding period in 2007.

China, India and Malaysia were the three largest contributing nationalities. China recorded the largest increase in commencements with 2013 more commencements than the corresponding period in 2007, i.e. a growth of 18.2 per cent. Other markets contributing to the rise were Malaysia (10.8% growth), Vietnam (56.7%), Hong Kong (11.5%), Saudi Arabia (54.4%) and Nepal (27.8%).

The majority of the commencements growth in this sector occurred in the ‘Management and Commerce’ and to a lesser extent ‘Society and Culture’ broad fields of education (accounting for 60.8% and 6.6% of the growth in Higher Education respectively). At the detailed level, much of the rise in the Higher Education sector occurred in ‘Management and Commerce’, ‘Banking and Finance’ and ‘Business and Management’ courses.

International Student Enrolments and Commencements by Sector, YTD June 2008

Vocational Education and Training (VET)
In YTD June 2008, the proportion of international student enrolments in the VET sector was 31.3 per cent, an increase from the 25.5 per cent recorded in YTD June 2007.

The sector has experienced a sustained period of strong growth since 2006 and this is continuing in 2008. YTD June 2008 figures showed increases of 46.5 per cent in both enrolments and commencements over the same period in 2007. The three largest markets in this sector – India, China and Nepal – together accounted for 73.3 per cent and 69.4 per cent of the increase in enrolments and commencements respectively. Other markets to record significant growth were Thailand, Republic of Korea, Vietnam and Pakistan. 

The top four broad fields of education were ‘Management and Commerce’, ‘Food, Hospitality and Personal Services’, ‘Society and Culture’ and ‘Engineering and Related Technologies’. ‘Management and Commerce’ recorded the largest increase in commencements with 8624 more commencements than the corresponding period in 2007, i.e. a growth of 42.8 per cent. Within the detailed field of education, 27.4 per cent of all commencements growth in VET was in ‘Hospitality Management’. Growth also occurred in ‘Business Management’ (13.2% of growth), ‘Hospitality’ (9.8%) and ‘Welfare Studies’ (8.8%).

ELICOS
Enrolments and commencements in the ELICOS sector grew 27.6 per cent and 28.6 per cent respectively between YTD June 2007 and YTD June 2008, continuing the strong growth seen in the sector since 2007. Markets that performed strongly were China, India, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam and Brazil. Other growth markets include Colombia, Thailand and Nepal. There were continuing declines from traditional markets in the sector such as Japan, the Republic of Korea and Taiwan.

Schools
Enrolments and commencements in the schools sector grew by 10.6 per cent and 13.3 per cent respectively. The growth in enrolments continues the upwards trend set through 2007. Enrolments from China now make up 46.3 per cent of all international student enrolments in this sector. YTD June 2008 figures for China showed increases of 33.2 per cent and 44.5 per cent in enrolments and commencements respectively over the same period in 2007. 

The market from China continues to have a strong influence on the schools sector. If China were excluded from the data, the sector would show an overall decline of 3.4 per cent and 5.3 per cent in enrolments and commencements respectively. Large schools markets in decline are the Republic of Korea, Japan, Hong Kong and Indonesia.

Attributing AEI International Student Data
When using any information in this article, please cite the source as "Source: Australian Education International Student Data, YTD June 2008".

About this data set
AEI enrolment data are extracted from the PRISMS database which is updated continually by education providers and by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship. Consequently, when AEI makes a new release it also updates its data for previous months in the current year to reflect these changes. Data on enrolments and commencements relate only to international students in Australia on a student visa. An enrolment is a count of any student enrolments in a discrete course of study and includes ongoing students. A commencement is a count of new student enrolments in a discrete course of study (and hence a component of the total count of all enrolments).

Note that AEI introduced the Australian Standard Classification of Education (ASCED) into the International Student Data series in the year-to-date (YTD) January 2008 data. The Classification defines ‘Field of Education’ as being the subject matter of an educational activity. The introduction of ASCED provides a finer level of detail about the course of study undertaken by international students than with the old ‘Broad field of study’ classification. The older classification will be phased out after the YTD December 2008 data release.

The latest 2008 data can be viewed at AEI Online.

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