Australasia

Australia's Minister for Schools, Peter Garrett, is on a mission to increase awareness of Asian culture and the study of Asian languages in Australian schools. He has announced AUS$4.6m in funding to further this aim.

A record number of delegates (800) attended APAIE at Thailand's first institution of higher education, Mahidol University. Attendance continued to rise year on year, said organisers.

English Australia has launched a new programme which unites two major export industries, education and tourism, in confronting the challenges of the strong Australian dollar. Tourism suppliers will be able to promote services to international students.

Australia’s international education malaise looks set to continue, according to new international enrolment data from Australian Education International (AEI). However, the English language teaching sector has avoided a repeat of the the major slide it saw last year but crucial market China declined further.

New Zealand’s tertiary education minister, Steven Joyce, is visiting the Gulf states of Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia to raise New Zealand’s profile as an international study destination. He will also support education companies as he meets with local ministers and attends IECHE, a major international education fair in Saudi Arabia.

Joining universities, select private colleges and TAFEs in Australia are to benefit from streamlined visa processing designed to boost their competitiveness. The move follows the streamlining of university visa processing last month. Under the scheme all overseas students applying for visas will be deemed low-risk – or from ‘level 1 risk assessment’ countries.

A website that allows students to compare Australia's 39 public universities met harsh criticism from industry professionals when it went live last week. They complain that some of the indicators used are not true measures of quality education – particularly student satisfaction – and that other HE and FE providers are also compared on the site.

New Zealand announced yesterday that it is scrapping the requirement for international students to have full medicals from July. They will only need to be screened for tuberculosis. Immigration Minister Nathan Guy says it will save potential migrants NZ$17 million a year and help attract low-risk, high-value students.

The Australian state of Victoria is lobbying the federal government for more shares of flights out of Asia to counter-balance the amount of connecting flights landing in Sydney. It is also calling for vocational education providers to be able to leverage the new visa rules that apply to universities.

In New Zealand, the Joint Council of Wellington Institute of Technology (WelTec) and Whitireia Community Polytechnic, through its wholly-owned subsidiary Whitireia NZ Ltd., has agreed to take over all students and courses of Computer Power NZ Ltd. The three-campus IT training provider is in liquidation.

International student enrollment fell by 37% last year in the Canterbury region of New Zealand, due to the fallout of the earthquakes. However, across the rest of the country, numbers increased by 6%, resulting in a decrease of just 0.5% nationwide for 2011. The government will spend NZ$5 million helping rebuild the industry in Christchurch.

English Australia, which represents the interests of English language teaching operations in the country, has unveiled a new brand identity which marks a new direction for the dynamic association. EA represents the majority of educators in the country and is engaged with consumers and government.

The New South Wales (NSW) government in Australia has an ambition to extend streamlined visa processing and post-study work rights to international students at a broader range of institutions, including vocational providers. This is part of a new strategy to leverage business migration.

Australia is to streamline the process of obtaining a visa for degree study as part of number of new measures to boost international education. The new system, to be introduced March 24, transfers the risk of proving the validity of applications from the government to universities, “making the application process simpler and faster”.

Whitireia New Zealand, a government-owned tertiary training institution with multiple campuses, has been chosen by the Korean government to offer training in hospitality and tourism to up to 40 Korean students. The scholarships also include English language training...