Though numbers vary from year to year, it is estimated that upwards of 500,000 overseas students come to Australia to study at universities, technical colleges and private schools. This has created education one of Australia’s largest exports and easily the fastest growing over the last decade.

The largest group of overseas students is from China and the second largest is from India. Students go to Australia because of its proximity to Asia, its high regular of living, its English speaking institutions and the powerful reputation of its top universities. A degree from an institution like the University of Sydney, the University of Melbourne or the Australian National University is very well regarded in Asian countries.

The typical encounter for these students is generally pleasant and they are generally quite satisfied with the regular of education they receive but thousands of students uncover themselves profoundly unsatisfied with their wider experience in Australia. This is since they frequently fail to meet a lot of Australians and also discover themselves unprepared for the financial and cultural differences they encounter in Australia.

Mixing with the locals

Students from China, Vietnam, Korea and other non-English speaking countries often come to study in Australia but leave soon after a few years, without having really meeting and generating friends with the locals. There are two big factors for this: (1) Australians, although friendly, are not likely to reach out to foreigners and make pals and (2) simply because there are so a lot of foreign students studying in Australia, people discover it extremely simple to mix with a friendly face from their residence nation.

Both of these issues can be overcome. Australians may not be outgoing towards foreigners but if the foreigner makes the effort they will find that Australians are actually really keen to make pals with folks from diverse cultures.

Insufficient data

Students from Asian countries typically do not get much suggestions on cultural and academic issues they may possibly encounter in Australia. Their own governments give them quite small suggestions and the Australian government offers practically no information, apart from promotional tourism info. Universities are also remiss in this regard and give virtually no advice on how to live in Australia, save for some mundane practical information related to enrolment and study. As a result students frequently discover their very first few months in Australia somewhat confusing and frequently haven’t even been told which side of the road folks drive on in Australia (the left).

Attacks on Indian students

In 2009 there had been a series of widely reported assaults on Indian students studying in Melbourne. They were portrayed in the Indian media as racially motivated and many students thinking about studying in Melbourne consequently decided to study in other cities or not come to Australia at all. Despite the fact that these events were horrible, they were blown out of proportion by Indian news services. There were a handful of attacks but it was discovered that they had been not linked and had been generally not racially motivated. They were largely just ordinary crimes, the type of which happen every single day in Australia. But it is somewhat ironic that rates of such crimes are lower in Australia than practically any country on earth and surely much lower than India.

Australia remains a quite very good country in which to study or to merely visit and education will likely make up even much more of Australia’s service economy in years to come.

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