International Student Markets

A meeting of the University of Auckland’s student represent council reportedly voted in favour of calling on the University to grandparent its international fees, Scoop reports. Grandparent means to cap fees.

“The University of Auckland claims it ‘grandparents’ its fees by ‘capping’ fee rises at 5%. This is disingenuous to call it grandparenting because it means continuous fee rises during the normal course of a degree,” says Bethanie Maples, AUSA Acting President.

The latest statistics indicate 250,794 overseas students enrolled in Australian universities an overall increase of almost three per cent on 2005, Sydney Morning Herald reports.

Although overseas students are continuing to come to Australia in increasing numbers, growth in foreign enrolments has slowed from 18 per cent in 2002 to nine per cent in 2004 and now stands at just 4.7 per cent.

Almost half of the foreign students in Australia are doing postgraduate courses.

Despite the slower growth in foreign students, it was still far higher than growth in domestic student numbers, which rose by 2.2 per cent from 2005 to 2006.

From 2002 to 2005, as overall university enrolments increased by about 7 per cent, IT suffered an 18per cent crash, says the study, The IT Education Bubble, by Ian Dobson of Monash University’s Centre for Population and Urban Research.

Commissioned by the Australian Council of Deans of Science the 56-page study reviewed trends over the period 2002 to 2005. Its analysis identifies a “considerable decline in information technology / computer science enrolments”.

By 2005, the number of information technology / computer science students was about the same as it had been in 2002 using the OLD counting methodology. In terms of the new methodology, there has been a decline of over 13,000 enrolments (18.5 per cent), at a time when enrolments overall increased by over 60,000 or 6.8 per cent.

Mumps, an acute contagious viral disease characterized by fever and by swelling of the parotid glands has been diagnosed in at least eight students in the past two weeks, with more cases likely, The Adelaide Advertiser, reports.

All lived in the same student accommodation which houses about 180 people.

Health authorities have advised the unidentified university on isolating those affected and have offered mumps vaccine to all unvaccinated residents.

The Vancouver Sun reports the list of private schools being monitored for possible grade inflation now includes three British Columbia-certified schools in China, including one run by B.C.’s former inspector of independent schools.

Concerns about standards surfaced last spring after University Hill secondary told The Vancouver Sun that some of its students who struggled with English 12 were boosting their marks by taking the same course after-hours at a nearby private school.

A Sun review of ministry records found that five B.C. private schools, which cater to international students, had given passing marks in English 12 to almost all senior students even though a majority had failed the provincial exam.