English language courses worth $5.9b last year
More than 91,000 foreign students who enrolled in English language colleges in Australia last year contributed almost $1 billion ($5.89 billion) to the national economy, according to a new study.
A report of the study said that students from Asia made up 84 per cent of enrolments, Europe 12 per cent and central and South America 4 per cent.
Japan and South Korea were the two major sources and provided the largest increase in enrolments but numbers from the mainland were down slightly on the previous year.
The study was commissioned by the colleges' representative organisation, English Australia. It was the ninth commissioned survey since 1996.
Despite a slowdown over the past two years, English language colleges experienced a growth in enrolments of 16 per cent and this boosted export earnings by 10 per cent, the report said.
As the increase occurred mainly in the shorter-stay study group category, there was only a 5 per cent increase in the number of weeks students spent in Australia learning English.
Seamus Fagan, chair of English Australia, said it was excellent news that Australia had experienced solid growth after two flat years although this was not the case for all providers.
'Growth has been experienced mainly among short-stay study group students, indicating a returning confidence to the language travel industry,' Mr Fagan said.
