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Australia to seek more students from Middle East, Latin-America

Xinhua, April 1, 2015 Adjust font size:

Australia should look beyond China and India and lure more international students from the Middle East and Latin-America, according to an Australian government review into education released on Wednesday.

With Australia hosting more international higher education students than ever before, the federal government has invited suggestions and feedback to take the higher education system to the next level with the Draft National Strategy for International Education.

Of the 250,000 international higher educational students in Australia last year, more than 36 percent called China home while a quarter came from India, Malaysia, Vietnam and Nepal.

"These countries will continue to be vitally important partners for many years to come," said the review.

"That said, it is important not to lose sight of the significant benefits of building relationships beyond our region, including in Latin America and the Middle East."

Education Minister Christopher Pyne said international education was vitally important to the Australian economy where traditional sectors, such as manufacturing, were in sharp decline.

"International education is a $16.3 billion (13.1 billion U.S. dollars) export industry that supports 130,000 jobs nationally," Pyne said in a statement on Wednesday.

"International education is one of Australia's greatest under- the-radar export success stories. It has been estimated that over the next decade, international education could double in value to the Australian economy, creating tens of thousands of local jobs."

"With many traditional industries under pressure, Australia is well placed to harness the knowledge boom, meet international demand for education and prepare people for professional jobs globally."

The national strategy will also focus on developing Australians students' foreign language skills. Chinese Mandarin, Japanese, Indonesian, French and Arabic will be included in a trial of online language learning for pre-school age children that will introduce children to the sounds and concepts of foreign language through interactive, games-based learning. Endi