In today’s talking points surging international student numbers in Australia, top Australian universities’ rankings fall, Australian opposition reveals “generational” early childhood education policy and China to hold Annual Conference for International Education
Surging International Student Numbers in Australia
Recent data released by University College London’s Centre for Global Higher Education has shown that Australia has surged ahead of the UK into second place for the world’s biggest destination for international students, behind the US.
Business schools have been at the centre of growth in overseas students in Australia – students have been in particular interested in postgraduate business and MBA courses.
The University of Sydney Business School has 14,000 students on its undergraduate and postgraduate courses – over 80 per cents of students at the Business School originate from China.
Source: Financial Times
Top Australian Universities’ Rankings Fall
Rankings released by the TIMES higher education results, released on September 26th, had 6 out of 9 Australian universities in the top 200 fall in their rankings. The University of Melbourne was able to retain it’s ranking at 32nd spot as Australia’s top ranked institution.
Despite individual success stories, including Sydney University climbing 2 places overall to number 59, Australian institutions slipped when compared to their global counterparts.
Industry groups, such as Universities Australia, have seized on the latest rankings to argue that Australian universities face an “uphill struggle” in the coming years as funding cuts take hold.
Source: SBS
Australian Opposition Reveals “Generational” Early Childhood Education Policy
The Australian Labor Party (ALP) has announced a plan to extend the existing early education subsidy to cover three year-olds as well as four year-olds. If the ALP is victorious at the upcoming election, which is expected to take place in May 2019, the 1.7 billion AUD plan aims to subsidise 15 hours of pre-school per week.
Leader of the opposition party, Bill Shorten claimed that the proposed plan will “help close the gaps created by disadvantage” and “help tackle the inequality faced by children born into low-income households who are currently denied educational opportunities that their peers may have.”
Source: Xinhua
China to hold Annual Conference for International Education
The 19th China Annual Conference for International Education will be held in Beijing from Oct. 18 to 21, under the theme: “Education Modernisation Practice and Exploration’’
Hosted by China Education Association for International Exchange, this year’s event will include an education expo and seminars on cooperation projects between Chinese and foreign universities and joint-venture universities.
Three reports on the development of Chinese higher education, joint-venture universities in China and study in China, respectively, will be released during the conference.
Source: The Sun