Last month Dirk Mulder warned truly terrible numbers for international education would start appearing in leave-of-absence reports (CMM May 18) And lo! on Friday they did

The bad news was in a synthesis of stats reported by the Department of Education, Skills and Employment, including international student deferment data for March and April.

March deferments in 2019 were 7 111, this year they were 20 682. In April ’19 they were 3 138 and this year 22 277.

Separate arrivals and departure stats data for the first quarter also showed the number of people with student visas was down 21 per cent, year on year. Ex China the decline was just 3 per cent. The drop in China arrivals was 48 per cent.