In the war for international students: Can Australia win the battle for international students?
As the post pandemic, Australia and other countries are lifting their bans on international students. Australia is known as the hub for international students. More and more students are admitted to the country in the hope of studying and getting settled there permanently.
Australia is also admitting more students in the hope of meeting the requirements of the labor market. However attracting more students is somewhat getting more difficult as the lucrative offers by other competitive countries.
Australia has been known as the champion of the international student market. An export market is created by Australia by international education which is worth billions of dollars. Some universities have achieved billion dollar plus export earnings from this.
Some of the universities are admitting more foreign national students than the locals, to generate more revenue. Some universities even have international student enrollment levels upto 50% . This keeps the Australian universities in high spirits as foreign students are funded a lot in the campus building.
But this has come to a halt during the Covid-19 period as the pandemic restrictions were followed, making a sharp decrease in the enrollment of the international students specially from Asia.
Also the attacks on Indian students and visa changes and high Australian dollar also helps in the downfall of international student enrollment specially from Asia. Most vocational and english language colleges were affected by this.
Covid-19 shutdown has resulted in 6% downfall of revenue of many Australian universities leaving them in loss. This also resulted in cutting the staff from the universities. Between March 2020 to December 2021, almost no international students arrived in the country.
The Australian Government's treatment toward international students during the pandemic also played a great role in the situation. International students were greatly affected by the unsympathetic treatment by the Morrison’s government.
The international students not only helped the universities and national economy but they were also very beneficial to the local businesses like restaurants and store owners.
Pandemic has greatly affected every sector in Australia including the small business to big, agriculture to construction business. There are more jobs everywhere with a limited workforce.
International students played a great part in meeting the labor market requirements by working part time in local business.
Australia is now finding new ways to attract more international students and is headon with other countries who are also a hub for international students. Will Australia be able to attract the same number as post pandemic is still not a clear sight.
