10 year plan to grow sector by 50%
4 May 2016
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
With international education worth $19.6 billion to the Australian economy in 2015, the government has provided $12 million in the Budget to fund the National Strategy for International Education 2025 released on 30 April.
………………………………………………………………………………………….……
The strategy actually has 3 parts:
- The National Strategy for International Education 2025 itself, which reflects a “whole-of-sector” approach and sets out a 10-year plan for further developing Australia’s position as a global leader in education and training. The national strategy is based around three pillars: “strengthening the fundamentals” (including improvements to student services and quality assurance), “making transformative partnerships” (which focuses on links at home and abroad, alumni networks, and visa policy), and “competing globally.”
- The Australian International Education 2025 (AIE2025) market development roadmap, which is the product of both extensive consultations within the sector and research from Deloitte Access Economics. It provides a 10-year market development framework for Australia’s education exports, including “game-changing” strategies to build scalable, collaborative networks of education providers, attract capital to fuel the sector’s expansion, and target key markets abroad.
- The Australia Global Alumni Engagement Strategy 2016-2020 outlines a five-year plan to strengthen and engage Australia’s foreign alumni with the broader goals of enhancing the country’s diplomatic access and influence and building trade and investment links.
In launching the strategy, minister for tourism and international education senator Richard Colbeck highlighted that international education has been identified as one of five “super growth sectors” that will help complete Australia’s transition from a resource-based economy to a modern services and knowledge economy:
To achieve this, we must build on our existing education, training and research strengths, to deliver high quality, innovative products and services to students that meet or exceed their expectations. This will enable us to withstand increasing competition and sustainably grow our market share, whilst maintaining the quality for which we are renowned.
The strategy was described as “a step in the right direction” by members of the former Coordinating Council for International Education, who were consulted in the early stages of the strategy’s development.
Accompanying the strategy is a report by Deloitte, The value of international education to Australia, commissioned to raise awareness of the importance of international education to Australia. The report identifies nearly $1 billion in additional benefits that international education delivers to the Australian economy, beyond the $19.6 billion in export income already reported by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Deloitte indicates that international education supports over 130,000 jobs across Australian and delivers substantial indirect benefits to other industries such as tourism and retail.
See
Address at launch of National Strategy for International Education 2025
Australia releases 10-year blueprint for expansion of its international education sector