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More students opt for education in Australia

Hyam, who is here on the last leg of her 11-day Gulf tour, told the Press on Monday that the number of students from the Gulf studying in Australia had increased from just over 200 four years ago to more than 1,750 in 2003, with an exceptionally high growth recorded from Saudi Arabia.

"While there are more students going to the US over the last few years, there has been virtually no growth and in some Gulf countries the number of students heading to America has fallen significantly," Hyam said, noting, IDP is the leading Australian international student recruitment organisation in the region. "In 2002 more than 60 per cent of students from the Gulf, who chose to study in Australia, went through IDP and a large number of them are national students."

Hyam is in Dubai to meet parents and students and to discuss with them education opportunities in Australia and to create awareness about Australian expertise in education and training.

Hyam said her meetings in Dubai will not only result in more students going to Australia, but they also initiate training programmes for nationals and the transfer of expertise in academic projects from Australia to the region.

She pointed out that international student recruitment and services was an important area of IDP's business, but, "we want to expand awareness about other IDP business areas such as offering vocational training programmes and exploring ways of collaborative experiences in the vocational fields."

IDP Education Australia also provides English language testing services throughout the world. IDP also manages several student fellowship programmes in the Gulf including programmes with Qatar Petroleum, the Kuwaiti Ministry of Higher Education and EDAAD in Dubai.

She announced that IDP Education Australia had recently established a new Global Peace Scholarship Trust for financially weak students interested in international academic exposure in Australian institutions and for Australian students interested in studying abroad. "To begin with, we have identified countries such Cambodia, India, South Africa, Mexico and the Gulf states and have already started getting scholarships together from large and small Australian universities," she pointed out.

She said initially the scholarships would be offered for one semester to students as part of their undergraduate programme and could be extended upto a maximum of two semesters. The first scholarship will be awarded for the second semester of 2004, said Hyam, pointing out that the guidelines to offer the scholarship and selection of students is currently being prepared.

Commenting on the increasing number of students from the region seeking undergraduate and graduate programmes in Australian universities, she said students are choosing Australia because of the good quality of education there. On completion of the programme, students are "work-ready". There is security and comfortable living environment with open society. There are prayer rooms and mosques on campuses and Halal food are provided to Muslim students in Australia.

A total of 25,000 students will be going to Australia through IDP Education Australia this year, she said disclosing the increasing numbers recruited by IDP alone for Australian universities.

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