Australia Report card 2018-2019: Correct number of Indian students going to Australia
I am passionate about Digital Marketing, Compliance and knowing about the market insights through authentic analysis and strategies. I have always wanted to prevent personal perceptions to prejudice me or colour my views, thus relying more on concrete, available data from reliable sources.
On 29th of January 2019, our agency, Competitive Careers Pvt. Ltd organized an Australian and Canadian education fair, in which 23 Universities and 300+ students participated. Many University representatives are already aware of my habit of keeping a close watch on the market as well as insights into it and other resources to determine the exact number of Indian students going abroad. Many of them had requested me to send them a copy of my latest insights of the number of Indian students actually going to Australia, Canada and other major destinations, for education in the year 2018. Therefore, this is an attempt to fulfil this request. I have tried to present the most accurate information I could, regarding the number of Indian students going to Australia, not only in the year 2019 but also in some of the previous years. Hence, if you are interested in the same, you are at the right place. This blog is tailor-made for you.
The following data is derived from ‘student visa program’ reports and pivot tables provided by the Department of Home Affairs, Australia on the data.gov.au website (https://data.gov.au/dataset/ds-dga-324aa4f7-46bb-4d56-bc2d-772333a2317e/details)
(Note: In the above figures, Dependents are NOT Included. )
Is the growth from the Year 2017 to 2018 clearly noticeable? ……..yes……….There is a whopping 52.88 % Growth. Looking at the growth in the last few years, we can safely assume that a positive trend is on the rise and is expected to continue for some time in the future. The figures also indicate that the number of students going to Australia for education may soon cross 40,000 per year. Even If the numbers cross the 38,000 figure, this will be the highest number of Indian students immigrating for education, in the history of the Australian education market.
Yearly Data on Australian Students visa of Indian students (As per Financial year: July to June)
If you want to know more details like Students visa for other sectors, Visa grant rate and the number of visas for dependents going along with the students, the below Table will be useful:
Note: The below statistics are represented according to the Australian Financial Year, which starts in July and ends in June. For example, data of the year 2016-17 means data for the period from 1st July 2016 to 30th June 2017.
Following table presents the data on which Australian State /Territory attract more students:
Here NSW, Victoria, and Queensland are attracting a majority of Indian students. A big increase in the number of students going to Victoria and South Australia can be observed during the financial year 2017-18.
Note on Different Data Sources
Vast and varying amounts of data are available like statistics from Immigration departments, IIE Open Doors® data, UNESCO Institute of Statistics, Department of Education etc… All this statistical information is represented and interpreted in different ways. All these statistics are also valid data, but each tends to tell us a different aspect of the same story. So sometimes people of our industry and specifically, the media get confused and often, wrong and misleading statistics are quoted.
My favourite of all the different statistical data on this subject is the ‘Student visa grant’ data from the respective immigration departments. For example, To know the Number of Indian students going to Australia, DHA/DIBP statistics is the best source. This gives us an exact number of new Indian students going to Australia in 2019 and also previously. Other data sources like Open Doors® data, Department of Education etc. include mixed data. They might be useful to know the total number of Indian students in Australia OR any other purpose. The total number of students includes both, the new students as well as students still studying in Australia, who have gone in the past few years. For Industry stakeholders, I firmly believe that new students going to Australia each year tell us a better story of how attractive Australia is as a study destination as well as an inkling of the policy setting strategies of the various immigration departments.
I leave any further analysis of these data and the resulting interpretation up to you, the readers and would love to hear your comments as well as feedback. Share your own Analysis here. Also, if you find any error contained in my analysis, please feel free to share it with me as this kind of data accuracy is crucial for all of us.