The higher education university system in Australia serves as an export through the amount of students that pay tuition and convert their currency to the Australian dollar. The number of students that receive higher education, either undergraduate or post-graduate that require an education visa (and lasts at least one semester) in Australia and at Australian institutions abroad factors into education as an export as well. Overall, education ranks as Australia’s third largest export and according to Evan Jone’s statistics, education related travel services has increased from $16,735 (A) m in 2008-2009 to $18,507 (A) m in 2009-2010 which is a 10.6% growth. These statistics do not factor in the drastic decrease that the education sector has experienced in the last year. A break down of each state for education as given to us by Sean Lennon about how states rank education exports from 2009-2010; NSW- 2nd, Victoria-1st, Queensland- 3rd, SA- 2nd, WA- 8th, Tasmania- 8th, NT- 13th, and ACT- 2nd.
Australia is esteemed as a country with a reputable higher education system, as they have seven of the top one hundred universities in the world as seen in the ranking of the top 100 universities in the world in our course packet. The Monash campus of Malaysia, at Cerawalk, was one offshore program that worked. Instead of starting their offshore programs with strict and rigid guidelines, Monash University allowed the culture of their offshore location to permeate and influence their actions for the program. Unlike the success story of Monash, there are also failures. The University of New South Wales attempted to off shore a program. During the process they spent $30 million dollars, but were forced to cut their losses and abandon the program after one semester because a lack of numbers which greatly offended the Singaporeans. This represents a massive failure and lack of integrating the university with the culture and expectations of the location.
The two greatest factors that have caused the dramatic downturn in educational exports is the rising Australian dollar at a time when the American dollar and the Euro are both weakening, and visa’s to study in Australia are becoming harder to obtain. Along with this, there was great controversy about Indian students getting assaulted. Sean’s latest statistic says that the education sector is projected to lose $4.8 B in 2011, and $4.2 B from related spending. This is absolutely a huge decrease from the $18.5 B generated in 2010.
The federal government in Australia does not have to adhere to the same constraints as the government in the United States. In Australia, there is not a separation of church and state. What that means is that the federal and state governments can help fund private universities in Australia. Right now, there are only two private universities (Bond and Notre Dame- which has 3 campuses) in Australia. Government has given land, money, and other support such as grants to private universities. The aboriginal program at Broom (a campus of Notre Dame’s) is almost 100% governmentally funded. “Notre Dame began in 1989 when it was founded through an Act of Parliament in WA” Leah said in her site report. It is associated with Notre Dame in the US, but only with its name. It is actually a separate and independent university.
Notre Dame Campus ( picture from website)
Map of where Notre Dame's campus' are...via Notre Dame's website
This is a picture of my campus in France. Learning about the Study Abroad Network brings back so many memories of my semester in France! In Sean Lennon's statistics, I was so excited to be included in the 2009/2010- 260,327 students that studied abroad. In France, I was one of the 16,910 students!!
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