Overseas student bonanza

OVERSEAS enrolments in the vocational education sector are booming, but universities are still the biggest export revenue earners.

OVERSEAS enrolments in the vocational education and training sector are booming, but universities are still the biggest export revenue earners in the education services sector.

New Australian Bureau of Statistics figures reveal education exports totalling $13.7 billion eclipsed tourism by $1.7billion in the past financial year.

Revenue includes fees and all other goods and service consumed by overseas students.

Figures from Australian Education International, the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations division which handles overseas students, confirmed VET enrolments are growing apace. For the year to July 2008 enrolments were up a staggering 44 per cent on the previous year, to 142,316.

But higher education still brings in the lion's share of revenue in educational exports, according to the ABS. In calendar year 2007, higher education still accounted for 63 per cent of expenditure, while VET brought in 18 per cent of the expenditure.

There was also growth in enrolments in English language intensive courses for overseas students for the year to July: they were up 23.4 per cent. School enrolments were up 10.94 per cent.

While higher education enrolments were up a modest 4.6per cent for the same period, the sector still accounted for the largest proportion of total enrolments, 38.7 per cent.

But VET is undeniably on the move. While in 2006 it accounted for about 21 per cent of enrolments, this year it made up 31 per cent of enrolments, while higher education was down from 50 per cent in 2006.

Student placement company IDP Education is about to release findings of a survey of almost 2000 international graduates surveyed from five Australian universities.

"The data will show what happens to graduates, their intentions and their choices," IDP chief executive Anthony Pollock said of the data, to be released at next month's Australian International Education Conference in Brisbane.