August statistics on international enrolment are up 9.5 per cent, with an extra 73,256 students at CRICOS institutions across Australia

 By DIRK MULDER

 Official August statistics on international enrolments are up 9.5 per cent, with an extra 73,256 students at CRICOS institutions across Australia.  Commencements are up 6.8 per cent with an additional 25,600 students starting study than at this time last year.

NSW has corrected after issues in the July numbers – semester start dates moving from July to August. HE in NSW is now up 1.5 per cent YTD. China commencements in NSW HE also corrected but are still down -3.8 per cent – year to year, that’s 866 students.

The new numbers confirm China is slowing but it is not as bad as the July numbers indicated. Demand from China is now down by 4 percent nationally across all sectors. ELICOS is taking most of the hit, with a 15.9 per cent drop.

Numbers from India are up 35.3 per cent, from 44,874 YTD August ’18 to 60,693 commencements this year. All states and territories, predominantly in VET benefit.

The ACT must be wondering what has happened with VET the only sector in the black.

The full analysis is in Features this morning.

 

Dirk Mulder is an international education business developer, strategist and market analyst. Contact him @ [email protected]