By Claire Field

Each year Australia is trusted to educate hundreds of thousands of students from across the globe. We can be rightly proud of our international education efforts. Student satisfaction data shows the significant positive impact our educational institutions are making.

Our success though doesn’t mean we can afford to be complacent. There remain a number of important issues we should be focussed on, including:

* why, despite the rhetoric, do our efforts at diversifying our international student cohort look like we’re merely paying lip service to the idea? (83 per cent of higher education enrolments and 71 per cent in VET come from just 10 countries.)

* agencies like the NSW Auditor General highlight the financial risk for universities in being so reliant on students from one source country (China). Yet commencements from Chinese students in both higher education and VET are increasing.

* the difference in the provider profile across the sectors – 84 per cent of international higher education enrolments are in public universities yet fewer than 6 per cent of international VET enrolments are in TAFEs

I have pulled the data from Austrade’s excellent Market Information Package. My analysis is here if you’re interested.

Claire Field advises on VET, international education and private higher education.