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Amid the gloom of the racial attacks on India Students in Australia, the Australian Prime Minister, on his recent visit to India, assured Indian government of the safety and well being of the Indian students. Expressing concern over the trouble caused to students on account of closure of four colleges in Australia, he announced the government would exempt these students from paying a student-visa application charge of A$540 (US$500). The closure was done after Global Campus Management Group filed Bankruptcy against the four private colleges in Sydney and Melbourne.
With stringent measures, being taken by Australia’s Immigration Department, it is assumed that more colleges will close. The increased vigilance has resulted in a sharp decline in the withdrawal of student applications, with the rate more than tripling to 17% in September compared with 5% in July.
India being the second lagrgest country in sending students to Australia, the Australian Government is concerned about the safety and quality of Australia’s international education sector worth $15 billion a year.
The collapse of four private colleges in Australia affected the career of about 2,700 international students. The students were mainly from India and other Asian countries. Concerned about the trouble caused to Indian Students as a result of this, Indian Government is planning to impose a policy to check the education agents in India. Currently there is no standard for working of study abroad consultants in India. There are around 2000 agents in Punjab who have taken E-Visa facility from universities in Australia and other countries.
The students deposited their fee in advance but Australian government has denied student visa to them after closure of these four colleges.
Regarding the racial attacks on Indian students in Australia, Manmohan Singh has conveyed Indian concerns to Aussie counterpart Kevin Rudd about the safety, security and well-being of our students and the Indian community. in Australia. Kevin assured the PM of the safety and well being of Indian students in Australia.
The number of institutions signing in to use TOEFL scores continue to increase at a fast pace. An additional 383 institutions have become TOEFL score users within the last year. Globally, around a million students appear for the test every year. The TOEFl test has been accepted by the top ranking universities around the world for the last 45 years.
Educational Testing Service, the creators of the test, announced that the English language proficiency test for both undergraduate and graduate applicants has now been accepted by 7,300 institutes across the world, making it one of the most widely accepted tests.
The Toefl test is accepted at 5,175 institutes in United States and Canada 1,000 in Europe, 600 in Asia and 200 in the United Kingdom . Institutes in Australia and New Zealand have also joined the bandwagon.
“Every student planning to study abroad takes either GRE or Toefl. For Indians, where one in every 25 student heads abroad, this is great news,” said Palav Sharma, counselor.
“As the number of institutions accepting the Toefl test is rising rapidly, we have opened additional testing centres in India and abroad,” said Teresa Sanchez-Lazer, executive director, Toefl product management. Currently there are more than 4500 test administration sites globally.
More than agriculture and the pharmaceutical industry UK Universities generate almost £60 billion (US$99 billion) a year for the UK economy – a study revealed last week. The report by researchers at Strathclyde University, commissioned by the umbrella group for vice-chancellors Universities UK, will be used by heads of universities to lobby ministers to allow a rise in students’ tuition fees.
The Strathclyde study used data from the Office for National Statistics, the Higher Education Statistics Agency and information from all 166 higher education institutions in the UK to measure the impact of universities on the economy. It found that universities generated more than £59 billion for the economy in 2007-08, a 25% rise on the £45 billion they produced four years before that. The total revenue earned by universities was £23.4 billion, compared to just under £20 billion for agriculture and under £15 billion for the pharmaceutical industry.
UK Universities brought in £5.3 billion from overseas students, international conferences and work conducted for overseas businesses. They provide the equivalent of 314,600 full-time jobs, or 1.2% of all full-time jobs in the UK. Those visiting universities from abroad and overseas students spent £2.3 billion off-campus, the study found.
The Study in Australia dream continues to sour and indications are that it is likely to only worsen for many currently enrolled Indian students. Last Thursday, 496 Indians were among 2,000 students, mostly from overseas, who were left stranded in Melbourne when three well known major vocational training colleges teaching mainly hospitality, cookery and design, along with a secondary school, shut down abruptly after declaring bankruptcy.
This takes the number of Indian students left adrift in the last four months in the state of Victoria alone to 869 and the number of educational institutions that have shut down in the same period to nine.
Following the expose of the Australian education system being used as a cover for backdoor migration amounting to what some commentators here have termed as ‘people smuggling’, the Australian authorities have reacted by not only reassessing the operations of many of the private vocational training colleges but by also severely tightening immigration standards while awaiting the results of a major review of its student visa policies. It is understood that in the last few months more than 80 per cent of Indian student visa applications to Australia have been rejected, which seems to confirm allegations that the laxity of the previous visa regime had led to an influx of ‘sub-standard’ students from India.
It is expected that the Australian Universities could experience a decrease in their international enrolments by almost 10%.
“If the drop in enquires during the last quarter continues, then the drop in enrolments in second semester for 2010 could be double-digit,” says Asia-Pacific Hobson’s Managing Director David Harrington. Harrington’s company represents 14 universities, including three leading research-based Group of Eight universities.
Earlier, another largest recruiter, IDP, also anticipated drop in Indian students enrolments. Chief executive Tony Pollock mentioned that he was worried about enrolment numbers from India being “quite soft”.
“We are looking at modest growth next year across portfolios. Higher education will be up and vocational education will be up, but we will see a lot less students from India,” Pollock added. He said most affected would be all the “single-purpose colleges” which were cashing on permanent residency driven student visa. “It will be a very tough period for them because most of their students are drawn from India. It will be a bleak winter for them,” he added.
Economic Recessions seems to have positive impact on the Universities in Canada. The Association of Universities and Colleges in Canada (AUCC) said as of September, there were 870,000 full-time students enrolled in universities. Of them, 733,500 were in undergraduate programs and 136,500 in graduate programs, representing a respective gain of 29,000 and 9,000 students over last year. This represents a 4.1 percent growth in undergraduate programs and a 7.2 percent increase in graduate programs.
“There is no question this is a reflection of what is going on in the economy,” says association spokesman Herb O’Heron . “It is really a strong response to the shifts in demands that are taking place. Part of it is the economy and part of it is the increasing value of a degree.”
In the last 12 months there have been more than 60,000 new jobs or university graduates, while there were 390,000 fewer jobs for those without higher education, the association said.
The saying ”It takes a thief to steal from a thief” seems to gel well with a group of internet scammers targeting students who illegally download music, books, and video.
Prosecutors say there are at least six common scams students should watch out for – fake scholarship promises, dodgy student loans, untrustworthy counselors, illegal downloads, diploma mills, and term paper and other cheating supplies.
The Chronicle of Higher Education has reported on an apparently bogus collections agency that sent out letters to Bucknell students demanding US$500 to settle the students’ alleged illegal downloads.
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