AEI International Student Data YTD August 2008

International Student Enrolments Up 18.5% in August 2008

The year-to-date (YTD) August 2008 AEI International Student Data show there were 474,389 enrolments by full-fee paying international students in Australia on a student visa. This is an 18.5% increase on YTD August 2007. Commencements in the same period grew by 21.4%.  

Nationality

Enrolments

The main source of Australia’s international students is the Asian region. Four of every five (79.3%) international student enrolments at onshore educational institutions were from the Asian region.

Nine of the top ten countries recorded increases in enrolments between YTD August 2007 and YTD August 2008.  India recorded the largest increase with 25,808 more enrolments than the corresponding period in 2007, a 47.4% growth.  Other top ten markets that grew strongly were China (growth of 18.8%), Nepal (101.8%) and Vietnam (62.7%).

Enrolments from Hong Kong declined steadily in all sectors, particularly in the English Language Intensive Courses for Overseas Students (ELICOS) and higher education sectors.  

Outside the top ten, countries with strong growth include Saudi Arabia (113.4%), Colombia (41.5%), Mauritius (59.3%), Sri Lanka (21.8%), Pakistan (29.9%) and the Philippines (41.4%).

Other significant markets such as Japan, Bangladesh and Taiwan continued to record falls in enrolments.  The decline in enrolments from Japan has seen this market fall out of the top 10 enrolment markets this month.  The decline in this market has mainly been in the ELICOS sector with smaller declines in the Vocational Education and Training (VET) and higher education sectors.  

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

Commencements

The growth in the number of commencements between YTD August 2007 and YTD August 2008 was 21.4%. India recorded 13,243 more commencements than the corresponding period in 2007 (a growth of 43.7%).  China recorded 12,264 more commencements (26.4% growth) in the same period. Should this pattern continue it is expected that commencements from India will exceed those from China within the next 12 months.

Commencements growth from India was primarily in the VET and ELICOS sectors (64.4% and 63.6% respectively), although there was 11.6% growth in higher education.  By comparison, most of the growth in Chinese commencements was distributed across the higher education (37.5%), VET (19.8%) and ELICOS (27.0%) sectors.

Other top ten markets showing double digit growth in commencements as at YTD August 2008 include Thailand (12.1%), Malaysia (12.0%), Nepal (59.8%), Brazil (28.7%) and Vietnam (79.3%).  Among the other top 10 nationalities, the Republic of Korea recorded just 3.7% growth, and the USA and Hong Kong recorded declines in commencements of 2.6% and 1.7% respectively.

Outside the top 10, markets showing strong growth in commencements include Saudi Arabia (113.5%), Mauritius (94.7%), Colombia (31.3%) and Indonesia (14.5%).

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

Sector

Higher Education

In YTD August 2008, the highest proportion of international student enrolments were in the higher education sector (37.8%).  Enrolments increased 4.5% while commencements increased 11.6% compared with the corresponding period in 2007.

China, India and Malaysia were the three largest contributing nationalities in both enrolments and commencements. China recorded the largest increase in commencements with 3,785 more commencements than the corresponding period in 2007, corresponding to a growth rate of 20.7%.  Other markets contributing to the rise in commencements were Vietnam (61.7%), Saudi Arabia (81.4%), India (4.8%), Malaysia (8.8%) and the Republic of Korea (15.2%).

The majority of the commencements growth in this sector occurred in the ‘Management and Commerce’ broad field of education, which increased 14.9% on last year.  ‘Information Technology’, ‘Society and Culture’ and ‘Engineering and Related Technologies’ also grew strongly, with increases of 7.8%, 9.0% and 9.0% respectively.

 At the detailed level, much of the rise in the higher education sector occurred in ‘Management and Commerce’, ‘Business and Management’ and ‘Banking and Finance’ courses.

International Student Enrolments and Commencements by Sector, YTD August 2008

Vocational Education and Training (VET)

As at YTD August 2008, the proportion of international student enrolments in the VET sector was 31.0%, an increase from the 25.6% recorded in YTD August 2007.

The sector has experienced a sustained period of strong growth since 2005 and this is continuing in 2008.  YTD August 2008 figures showed increases of 43.3% in enrolments and 40.4% in commencements over the same period in 2007, with VET commencements exceeding those for higher education.  The three largest markets in this sector, in both enrolments and commencements, are India, China and Nepal.  Together they account for 71.5% and 66.9% of the increase in enrolments and commencements respectively.  Other markets to record significant growth in enrolments were Republic of Korea (21.2%), Vietnam (93.8%), Thailand (23.3%) and Mauritius (84.7%).

The top four broad fields of education in both enrolments and commencements 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 9,716 more commencements than the corresponding period in 2007, representing growth of 32.4%. The top detailed field of education was ‘Hospitality Management’, with 17,737 commencements and growth of 31.1%. Other detailed fields of education contributing to the overall growth in VET commencements include ‘Business Management’ (75.0% growth), ‘Hospitality’ (417.2%) and ‘Welfare Studies’ (142.2%).

ELICOS

Enrolments and commencements in the ELICOS sector grew 22.2% and 20.8% respectively between YTD August 2007 and YTD August 2008, continuing the strong growth seen in the sector since 2006.  Strong growth markets in enrolments include China (23.6% growth), India (68.4%), Vietnam (120.0%) and Saudi Arabia (119.0%). There were continuing declines from established markets in the sector such as Japan and Taiwan.  The Republic of Korea and Bangladesh, both growing markets in YTD August 2007, showed declines for YTD 2008.

Schools

Enrolments and commencements in the schools sector grew by 9.4% and 10.1% respectively.  The growth in enrolments continues the upwards trend set through 2007.  Enrolments from China now make up 46.5% of all international student enrolments in this sector.  YTD August 2008 figures for China showed increases of 28.0% and 30.0% in enrolments and commencements respectively over the same period in 2007. 

China has a strong influence on the schools sector. If China were excluded from the data, the sector would show an overall decline of 2.9% and 3.4% in enrolments and commencements respectively.  Large schools markets in decline include the Republic of Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia and Thailand.

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 has introduced the Australian Standard Classification of Education (ASCED) into the International Student Data series. This new classification will be available in the year-to-date (YTD) January 2008 data onwards and defines ‘Field of Education’ being the subject matter of an educational activity. The introduction of ASCED will provide a finer level of detail about the course of study undertaken by international students than with the old ‘Broad field of study’ classification.

The latest 2008 data can be viewed at: http://aei.gov.au/AEI/MIP/Statistics/StudentEnrolmentAndVisaStatistics/2008/Default.htm

Contacts: