Chinese-Australian parents set high educational goals for children: study

A study has found that Asian-born parents -- in particular those from China -- living in Australia have extremely high educational aspirations for their children.

The study, by the Australian Scholarship Group and Melbourne's Monash University, was released on Tuesday and found that cultural influences on Chinese parents meant they urged their children to pursue higher education more actively than Australian-born parents.

"In Hong Kong there is a culture of learning that pervades everything. The children grow up knowing that academic achievement is important and that continues on right through their education," the report's co-author, Doctor Shane Phillipson, an associate professor at Monash University's education faculty, told Fairfax Media on Tuesday.

Parents from Sri Lankan and Chinese backgrounds topped the list as the most keen to drive their kids toward a university education.

A pool of 1900 parents was surveyed in a wide-ranging questionnaire for the study, which unearthed some other intriguing results.

It found, for example, that 95 percent of parents who sent their children to private school had brought up the subject of university with their kids -- compared with 91 percent of Catholic- schooled and 89 percent of state-schooled kids.

"Parents of children attending private schools generally have higher aspirations for their children ... It can be concluded that these aspirations reflect an expectation by private school parents for a 'return on investment'," the report stated.

According to the research, parents were more likely to remind their sons to study while at home, as they believed boys were easily distracted at school.

Mothers were more realistic about their children's future academic endeavors, compared with fathers who were said to have a "more idealistic" view.

Affordability of higher education was also a major issue of parents, with almost 30 percent of those surveyed working two jobs to support their children's tertiary education.

Australian Scholarships Group chief executive John Velegrinis said it was pleasing to get a parental perspective on education which would help achieve better outcomes for prospective academics.

"We never hear the voice of the parents, who are the most important stakeholder of the group," he told Fairfax Media on Tuesday. Endi