Australia launches website on education institutions

Melbourne: Australian government has launched a new website that will assist international students to compare the countries' tertiary education institutions on course satisfaction levels, staff numbers, drop-out rates and subsequent employment and make an informed choice.

Launching the 'MyUniversity website', Education Minister Chris Evans said it is a valuable tool, now that the government has uncapped university places.

"We've provided for students to choose where they want to go without restrictions, to choose the courses they want to study, and part of empowering them is to give them good information about what their options are," he said.

"We've got 39 public universities and other private institutions and we want to make sure that prospective students understand the choices available to them."

According to apex university body, Universities Australia, the site could be potentially useful.  

The universities have been ranked on criteria like student satisfaction, demographics and subsequent employment.

However, chief executive Belinda Robinson has raised concerns about the accuracy and reliability of the data.  

"The information comes from a variety of sources, including from universities, but a great deal of that information has been collected for other purposes," she said adding "Data on attrition rates, for example, is used to assist universities in their own internal planning."

"When it's used for this purpose, it somehow gives the impression that the higher attrition, the worse the university.

But of course this is not the case, because we know that attrition is often a consequence of students choosing to change courses, students choosing to change universities.

I think we all know of someone who perhaps started in science and later moved to medicine.  

She said parents and students should not see the MyUniversity website as a substitute for other information.  

This is a supplement to information that's already available, and of course the best information you can get is from the universities themselves," she said. 

Melbourne University tops reputation ranking in Australia

Melbourne: The University of Melbourne has been ranked 43rd best university in the world and remained top in Australia in the 2012 Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings.

Melbourne, which has risen two places from the inaugural reputation rankings last year, is also the leading university in the Oceania region.

The rankings are based on a survey of 17,554 academics from 137 countries, according to the university statement released.

The survey asked academics to nominate up to 15 of the “best” institutions in their field of expertise, based on their experience and knowledge.

The reputation rankings complement the Times' annual World University Rankings, in which Melbourne is ranked 37th in the world and top in Australia.

The university Vice-Chancellor Glyn Davis said it was a tribute to the University's teaching staff and researchers that it had managed to improve on last year's excellent performance in the reputation rankings.

Davis said the result continued the trend of improvements in the University's rankings over the past few years.

Australia edu revenue slumps heavily on declining foreign students

Melbourne: Australia's education sector has registered a massive fall of over 3 billion dollars in revenue from foreign students as number of overseas pupils plummeted.

Latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows that the value of international students to the education sector has fallen by a whopping 20 per cent last year but the government has dubbed this decline “as expected, and a good thing”.

Australia's education sector that drew a large number of foreign students, including Indians, is one of the major revenue earners in Australia. However, figures from 2010 to 2011 showed a 3 billion dollar loss.

Tertiary Education Minister Chris Evans, while speaking at an education conference in Canberra, said the fall was restricted to vocational colleges which the government had targeted with reforms to stop “visa rorting” or dishonest practices, a report in 'The Australian' said.

Deloitte's report last year for peak group Universities Australia had predicted a worst-case scenario of just 3 per cent decline in 2011 across all education sectors. However, the figures reveal a 20 per cent fall last year alone.

The figures released yesterday show the growth in GDP slowed to 0.4 per cent in the December quarter from 0.8 per cent in the September quarter. More than a third of this can be attributed to losses in international education revenue.

In December, international education recorded an earning of 2.8 billion dollars, down from 3.7 billion dollars a year earlier a 26 per cent drop. Evans was “not concerned by the statistics reported and I don't accept the criticism”.

“The fall-off has been in the lower levels of vocational courses and that reflects the government's decision that I made when I was immigration minister to end the migration rorts. That sector was (characterised) by visa-rorting; people being sold a visa rather than an education,” he said.

Among the factors being cited for the drop in foreign students is a rapidly rising Australian dollar since 2009, tightening of the visa regime as well as migration rules.