Western Australia, once a national leader in educating foreign students, is struggling to retain its share of the international student pool.
Western Australia, once a national leader in educating foreign students, is struggling to retain its share of the international student pool.
The sector's comparative decline against other states comes despite the launch of initiatives to generate business from new markets in an attempt to compensate for the erosion of its traditional base.
According to data from government agency Australian Education International, the number of international student enrolments in WA declined by 1.8 per cent between January 2006 and January 2007.
During the same period, Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia each increased their enrolments by more than 10 per cent.
While WA’s international student enrolments grew by 20 per cent during the five-year period 2002 to 2006, it was the lowest rate of growth of all the states, behind Victoria (44 per cent), Queensland (39 per cent) and New South Wales (38 per cent), and significantly below South Australia, which nearly doubled its intake.
WA also registered the lowest year-on-year growth in enrolments from 2005 to 2006, with an increase of just 3.9 per cent.
South Australia maintained a significant growth rate of 14.1 per cent, followed by Victoria (13.3 per cent) and NSW (11.8 per cent).
Those within the international education sector say WA has been disadvantaged by several factors, including immigration rules that designate Adelaide a regional centre, giving migrants to the area bonus points in their visa applications, and the fact that other states rely on single markets, such as China and India, that are performing strongly.
According to Mike Ryan, executive director of peak body Perth Education City – a consortium of universities, colleges and schools which campaigns to raise WA’s profile in the international education market – WA’s underperformance can be attributed to under-funding of the agency and changing market behaviour.
He said it would take time for the agency’s strategy, backed by a $3.8 million government grant allocated in 2005, to have an effect.
“You have to be realistic enough to know that it will take two to four years for the implemented strategy to make an impact,” he said.
Mr Ryan said a challenge was that WA’s major traditional markets – Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Japan – had been in decline nationally for more than three years, a situation exacerbated by the strong dollar.
“At the same time, competing states like Queensland and South Australia have enjoyed stronger state government funding to the tune of about $2 million per year since 2002,” he said.
“This has enabled them to do things we couldn’t start doing until the end of 2005.”
Part of PEC’s strategy is to break dependence on traditional sources by entering markets like Brazil, India, Hong Kong and parts of Africa.
Mr Ryan said WA’s intake from India grew 26 per cent from 2005 to 2006, albeit from a small base, while enrolments from Hong Kong were stable during the same period, despite a downward trend in other states.
However, he acknowledged that WA’s new markets were not yet compensating for the decline in traditional bases.
While enrolments from China are up nationally, Mr Ryan said more needed to be done to improve WA’s share.
“Talk about the fact that we’re a mining state does not encourage people to come here to study,” he said.
