Beijing 'will need Australian help to teach one million'
The central government will need Australia's help to educate at least a million of its citizens, Australian Education Minister Brendan Nelson said last week.
Dr Nelson said that during a visit to China last month, Education Minister Professor Zhou Ji had said his country had some 250 million students.
'Professor Zhou said that over the longer term, China would like to see Australia help educate about one million of those - in China I hasten to add,' he said.
At the launch of a report on Australia's education export industry, Dr Nelson said the mainland was Australia's leading source for international student enrolments.
Last year, almost 70,000 mainland and Hong Kong students were enrolled in courses in all Australian education sectors while an estimated 30,000 were studying Australian programmes on the mainland.
'The potential for growth, I think, is significant,' Dr Nelson said.
He said the mainland was moving quickly to build and establish what it envisaged would be world-class universities. But they needed mutual recognition and collaborative arrangements with Australia's world-class universities.
'We need to develop programmes where there is mutual recognition and joint offering of degree programmes, not only with some of those Chinese universities but others throughout the world,' Dr Nelson said.
He said there were about one million students internationally looking for education in English-speaking countries. By 2025, the number was expected to reach at least eight million.
Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, who was also at the launch, noted that Australian education exports were creating 'people-to-people' links that were vital for furthering Australia's interests in the region.
Such links helped foster confidence and understanding between Australia and its neighbours, Mr Downer said.
'I think you'd find that there would be somewhere in the vicinity of 700,000 people around Asia who, over the last 55 years, have been educated in Australia,' he said.
The report, Education Without Borders: International Trade in Education, was produced by the Department of Foreign Affairs' economic analytical unit. Education is Australia's fourth largest export industry, generating almost A$6 billion ($35.88 billion) last year, a 13 per cent increase on the previous year, it says.
The pressure for more tertiary level places in Asia, for higher quality education and greater subject choice had also created the momentum for the large-scale reform and restructuring of higher education in several economies.
Regional attitudes to private education are changing. Private higher education increasingly is valued by governments as it alleviates pressure on publicly-funded higher education and delivers subjects not yet taught widely or to a high standard in local universities.
