Australia no more favourite destination for Gujarati students

The racist attacks on Indian students and the sudden closure of a few private colleges in that country has made the Indian students think twice before deciding to pursue their education in Australia. While Australian government has taken many an initiative to refurbish the image of the country, a recent statistics reveals a drastic decline of 50 percent in the number of Gujarati students interested in studying in Australia.

With their faith in the Australian social conduct shaken, overseas consultants get very few queries from the Gujarati student community. The newly implemented visa regulations have made matters worse. Acquiring a student visa has become all the more difficult for international students under the new procedure.
 
With all these hurdles before them, no wonder Indian students think “Why the hostile Australia, out of all the places?”
 
However, the total number of Indian students who went to Australia for higher studies had gone up by 164% in 2007 compared to 2006. In 2008, 94% more Indian students had flown to Australia for pursuing their education.
 
At present, the number of Indian students studying in Australia is estimated to be 97,000.
Gulshan Kumar Pathania, president of the Association of Australian Education Representatives in India (AAERI) said that the self-regulatory body is striving for the restoration of the lost faith in the Australian education system. 
 
Together with the Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship, Australian Education International and the Australian High Commission, AAREI is engaged in the process of framing useful guidelines for Indian students who are planning to study in Australia.
 
Advisor of the Australian Education International at the Australian High Commission, however, denied any drastic change in the number of students registering for higher education in Australia Priya Raja adding that their numbers declined by about three percent only in English language courses and that too in September 2008.