Student interest in Australia goes down under

But universities and recent visitors to Australia say the country’s reputation is on the rebound as people realise the situation is not as bad as once speculated.

Seventeen Australian universities participated at an education fair organised by IDP Education India in Bangalore on Saturday, attracting a hall full of interested students. Varun Poojary, who aspires to study engineering abroad, said the courses available in Australia were attractive, but his thoughts had turned to the spate of attacks against Indian students during the past three years.

“That was one thought that I was actually scared of. It was my first concern,” Poojary said.

Reports of assaults on Indian students surfaced in 2008, and during the following year a series of vicious attacks, leaving one student in a coma, sparked rallies across major Australian cities. In January 2010, Nitin Garg, of Punjab, was killed while walking to work.

While many friends avoided considering Australian universities because of the attacks, Poojary added those living in Australia told him they felt safe, and the country’s job market was healthier than Europe’s.

“Wherever you go, there’s racial discrimination. Though it doesn’t usually amount to attacks and murders,” he said.

India area manager of Blue Mountains International Hotel Management School, Prateek Gujral said the school had lost almost 80 per cent of its applications from India after the attacks. The school responded by making it mandatory for students to live on-campus.
“[This gives us] a certain level of control. There’s still no guarantee [of total safety] but you feel safe at your home,” Gujral said.

While maintaining that some of the publicity around the attacks had been overblown, he said Australia was a welcoming country where most people were recent immigrants and the trouble had been caused by a few drunken youths.

Griffith University South Asia marketing manager Ashwini Malhotra said it would still take between a year to 18 months for students to return to Australia at the same levels as before the attacks.

“It was pretty, pretty down. The attacks did happen, unfortunately, and they shouldn’t have,” Malhotra said. The school had begun advising students to take extra precautions when they went off-campus, and the government put in place stringent measures to protect students, she said.

IDP Education Bangalore branch manager Almas Madarwala, said the fair had had a great turnout of students. “The confidence in this country has built up again. It’s because the quality of the institutions are world-class,” Madarwala said.