Australian Higher Education Institutions well placed to meet Chinese demand

Australia’s education system is well placed to meet Chinese students’ demand for high quality education overseas, Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd has said.

Speaking at University of Queensland (UQ) partner institution Guangdong University of Foreign Studies (GDUFS), Mr Rudd said that that while China’s domestic education system was excellent, it struggled to meet demand – with only 2000 higher education institutions available for a population of 1.3 billion people.

“The shortage of places remains one of the key reasons why an increasing number of Chinese students are seeking high quality education overseas,” Mr Rudd said.

“In 2010, a total of 284,700 Chinese went to study abroad, an increase of 55,400 over last year."

Australian education institutions benefit from this demand particularly because the institutions enjoy a good reputation among Chinese students in terms of the global university rankings, Mr Rudd said.

“It is not surprising that China is Australia's largest source of overseas students with more than 130,000 students studying at Australian education institutions in 2010,” he said.

UQ and GDUFS have strong links, particularly in the areas of Business, Economics and Law. Since 2004, 427 GDUFS students have studied at UQ.

Media: Elspeth Muir at UQ International (07 3346 7672, e.muir@uq.edu.au)