“Perth has a strong international profile. There’s no question about the quality of education on offer here; the international students that do come here are extremely satisfied.”
What were the key milestones and building blocks that have driven Perth’s emergence as a regional hub for tertiary education?
Historically, the Colombo Plan has had a massive impact, it has made Perth a real focal point for students from Singapore and Malaysia. The Colombo Plan was born in the 1950s, when students from south and south-east Asia were offered scholarships. It is interesting that so many of the students that were recipients of those scholarships, people that had come and studied in Western Australia (WA), returned and became senior business and government leaders in their home countries. This programme paved the way for the changes the federal government made in July 1986, when it allowed foreign students to attend Australian universities as paying students. In the early 1990s, around 25% of all international students coming to Australia were coming to Western Australia, principally out of three or four countries – Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Indonesia.
What is your assessment of Perth’s competitiveness in terms of attracting students, and what challenges remain?
Perth has a strong international profile. There’s no question about the quality of education on offer here, the international students that do come here are extremely satisfied. I think what we could have done better in the past is capitalise on those very early days when we had 25% of the market. It took a while for State governments to actually understand the value of international education. The industry wasn’t developed by big businesses or government, but rather by the universities and colleges themselves. The industry was built organically, so there was no recognition or clear understanding as to where international education fit within the broader society and economy. That has changed dramatically at the State level and also at the federal level. The federal government now has education as one of its five major strategic growth areas. They see education as potentially growing to be the second largest export dollar earner for Australia, and recently released a roadmap for the sector – AIE2025 to significantly grow international education in Australia. WA will benefit from that but we still need our State governments and universities to be looking at what else they can do at the State level to further increase our competitiveness.
What is the direct economic impact of the international higher education sector?
As an industry, it’s the third largest export dollar earner for Australia after iron ore and coal. Within the services area, education is the largest – accounting for about 28% of all services dollars generated. When I say services export dollars, that includes tourism, financial services and the like. If we consider tourism, a great deal of focus at the national level goes on that industry, but interestingly enough a significant number of tourists that visit are parents coming down to visit their children who are students. The impact of the sector is massive.
Looking at the breakdown of where international students are going within Australia, WA’s share is 10-12%. There’s around 35,000international students in WA, and its worth about $1.4 billion to the State economy. That’s of a figure of about $20 billion for Australia, so about 7%.
What other opportunities do you see out there for the players within WA’s higher education sector?
I think WA has an opportunity to export the expertise we have here to other countries, in order to assist them in building their own education system that can deliver to their populations what they need. If you look at developing countries at the moment, there is a huge demand, without the capacity on the supply side, for university places in particular. The funding is going towards getting kids through primary school, through to high school and then getting them ready for university. You have to get all that right, so all the money at the moment is focused on primary and secondary education. More and more people are going through those systems, but when they hit the end of secondary school, the capacity to move on for further study is very limited in those countries. Anyone who can afford it now goes overseas, but there’s a big pool of people who actually can’t afford to go overseas, but could afford an international program in their own country. I think that’s where the opportunities are now starting to grow. This is all particularly applicable with all the new technologies that are coming to play. In Australia there’s a lot of work being done federally to promote the export of our services into other countries, and the government is pushing hard trying to get people to recognize that opportunity and deliver on the promise.