Uni students from China
Information on international students is tracked by Australian Education International (AEI). Here are figures for enrollments from some Asian countries in all sectors of education (data from here).
| Country | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | Change from 2002 to 2007 |
| China | 48,236 | 60,301 | 70,741 | 81,843 | 90,048 | 107,071 | 122.0% |
| Hong Kong | 21,984 | 23,765 | 22,816 | 21,266 | 20,424 | 19,742 | -10.2% |
| Taiwan | 10,006 | 10,607 | 10,151 | 9,584 | 9,889 | 9,646 | -3.6% |
| Malaysia | 17,540 | 19,827 | 19,994 | 19,336 | 19,118 | 19,874 | 13.3% |
| Singapore | 12,074 | 11,852 | 10,860 | 9,898 | 9,229 | 8,853 | -26.7% |
This is summarised in the following graph:
As you can see, China is sending a lot of students to Australia compared to other countries – and over five years the numbers have more than doubled!
However not all of these students are actually university students. This next table shows only the figures for the higher education sector alone (eg. universities).
| Country | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | Change from 2002 to 2007 |
| China | 16,311 | 22,394 | 30,203 | 40,054 | 45,873 | 48,695 | 198.5% |
| Hong Kong | 8,376 | 10,182 | 10,974 | 10,703 | 9,895 | 9,180 | 9.6% |
| Taiwan | 3,883 | 4,113 | 4,165 | 3,964 | 3,814 | 3,706 | -4.6% |
| Malaysia | 13,595 | 15,426 | 15,895 | 15,375 | 14,897 | 15,200 | 11.8% |
| Singapore | 10,442 | 10,186 | 9,229 | 8,349 | 7,855 | 7,516 | -28.0% |
This is summarised in the following graph:
Again, a huge increase in students from China – the figures have almost tripled over a five year period! China is the largest sending nation of students – and accounts for 22% of overseas students.
But overseas students tend to head to certain universities over others. This graph shows the top ten universities that overseas students attended in 2006, by number of students. As you can see, in NSW Macquarie University actually had 9.7 thousand overseas students.
If you’re wanting to do ministry to overseas students, this shows you strategic unis. But from the previous post, you can see that many of these university students don’t actually stay in Australia long-term. This means they are generally only here in Australia for a short while, before returning to their home countries.
[ PS: I'll be flying off to Melbourne on Tuesday for the ANZCCCOE conference! ]
