社団法人 日本経済研究センター

Japan Center for Economic Research

October 25, 2007

Australia Moves Ahead in the Export of Education
Shigesaburo Kabe
Senior Economist

The waves of globalization have spread to the shores of education, and international
competition is intensifying in universities and other institutions of higher education.
Naturally there is rivalry over research results, but border-transcending activities have alsointensified in the provision of educational services.
In the Asia-Pacific region as elsewhere, many countries take a serious view of theeducation industry. Singapore, for instance, has set its sights on becoming an education hub.
Of particular note is Australia, which is actively promoting the internationalization of its
education industry as a key state policy. It is taking a number of steps to attract talented
students, including promotion of the acceptance of students from the Asian region.
From Australia’s point of view, gaining competitive power in educational services(including educational tours) through an increase in overseas students has tangible benefits.
Income from educational services is the second largest component of trade in services aftertourism. As of 2005, this was a vital source of income amounting to $7.5 billion.
Conspicuous increase of students from China
Data for 2007 show that there are 210,956 overseas students in Australia’s field of
higher education, and they constitute 17% of all university students. Those attendingclasses on domestic campuses amount to 149,625—by far the single largest category—but
there are also 49,709 students in offshore programs, which I will discuss later, as well as
11,622 students taking distance or online courses.
Among the overseas students on domestic campuses, more than 30,000 are from China,
the leading country. Next come India and Malaysia, with more than 10,000 students each,followed by Hong Kong with about 8,600 students. Students from China and India inparticular have been increasing rapidly. Asian countries and regions occupy the top spots inall such rankings. This provides evidence of the popularity of studying in Australia,
especially among the children of affluent Asian families.1
1 Data on overseas students drawn from “International Students in Australia: Higher Education,” IDP Education Pty Ltd, 2007

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Promoting offshore education
A feature of the Australianoverseas students is that not all ofthem travel from their homecountries to study in Australia, andthat a large number of them areso-called offshore students who ineffect attend an Australian school
without going abroad (Figure 1).
These offshore students takeAustralian university courses athome by, for instance, enrolling in a
local school affiliated with anAustralian university. As of 2003,
more than 30 universities wereoffering a total of 1,569 offshore
programs.

Figure 1. Offshore Programs of Australian Universities(Cumulative)( Number of programs )( Year )Source: “Offshore Programs of Australian Universities,”
Australian Vice-Chancellors’ Committee, 2003.

Australia’s offshore students have increased to the point where they amount to about
one third of the number of students going to Australia for studies. Among the universities
offering such programs, some have made an aggressive bid to draw in Asian students by
establishing campuses overseas, such as those of Monash University and Curtin Universityof Technology in Malaysia.
A breakdown of the offshore students by country and region shows that Singapore andMalaysia lead the list with more than 10,000 students each. As can be seen in Figure 2, theissuance of visas by Australia to students from these two countries has recently decreased.
The reason for this may be that an increasing number of prospective students have instead
opted for offshore programs. Third on the list is Hong Kong (about 7,500 students),
followed by China (about 6,100) and Vietnam (about 2,200).
Figure 2. Issuance of Higher Education Visas for Study in Australia(Number of people)
9000
China

8000

India

7000
Malaysia

6000
Singapore

5000
4000

Indonesia

3000

Thailand

2000
Japan10000199293

South Korea
93-94

94-95

95-96

96-97

97-98

98-99

992000200001

01-02

02-03

03-04

(year）

Source: Australian Vice-Chancellors’ Committee.

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Higher education courses are at the center of Australia’s education “exports,” butoverseas students are also taking advantage of other offerings, such as intensive English
language courses and job-training education. The language program ELICOS (English
Language Intensive Courses for Overseas Students) is consistently popular, and it attracts
large numbers of students from South Korea, Japan, Thailand, Taiwan, and other Asian
countries that are not part of the English-language sphere. Job-training courses also draw inpeople from a broad range of countries and regions, including India, Thailand, Hong Kong,and China. Job-training courses of the offshore type are also available, enabling trainees topick up skills without leaving their home countries.
The commercialization of higher education
In the background of the efforts Australia is channeling into the internationalization ofhigher education is a reform of the field dating from the second half of the 1980s.
Institutions of higher education had been divided into either universities or colleges ofadvanced education (CAEs), but these two categories were eventually merged. Other steps
were also taken to promote the commercialization of higher education by elevating thedegree of freedom to select educational services.
In the area of overseas students, collection of a higher education fee was started in1985. In 1990 the government eliminated all subsidies related to students from overseas
with the exception of those for scholarships, shifting to a policy of collecting full fees fromalmost all overseas students. This marked a major switch in policy for overseas students
from “subsidizing education” to “exporting educational services.” 2 As a result, efforts toattract overseas students spread nationwide using the selling points that (1) Australia is asafe country, (2) it is relatively close to Asia, and (3) it is part of the English-language
sphere.

Shigesaburo Kabe
Senior economist in the Economic Research Department, specializing in the Asian
economy and the movement of people.
For inquiries regarding this paper, please contact at 81-3-3639-2819 (phone).

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2 Kazuhiro Sugimoto,” Sengo Osutoraria no koto kyoiku kaikaku kenkyu ”(Research on Higher Education Reform in Postwar
Australia), 2003.

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