AEI releases August 2013 statistics

After a long 'data break' whilst the government was in caretaker mode for the election, AEI has now released two months’ worth of new data, taking the latest international student data up to YTD August 2013.

There have been some significant changes over this 2 month period.

Overall growth in international student commencements continues to strengthen from +3.4% at YTD June to +7.4% at YTD August. The VET decline has slowed (but not yet stopped) and growth in higher education is being driven primarily by post-graduate students.

The ELICOS sector shows the strongest level of growth, with each month accelerating the return to growth that commenced in September 2012. YTD August figures show growth of +20%, producing a total of 59,022 commencements. This growth represents 9,667 more commencing students than YTD 2012 and is not only growth compared with YTD 2012, but also compared with both YTD 2011 and YTD 2010.

The sector has now seen 12 consecutive months of growth – with this growth experienced across a diverse range of countries. The growth is accelerating, with July showing growth of +28% and August growing by +40%.

In both 2010 and 2011 all of the top 10 countries experienced declining numbers. 2012 figures showed declines from only 4 countries in the top 10: China, South Korea, Brazil and Saudi Arabia. Only one of these countries continues to decline in the first 8 months of 2013 (Saudi Arabia).

Vietnam (2,053), Colombia (1,159), Thailand (1,084), Brazil (1,036) and China (1,016) have contributed the largest numbers of additional ELICOS students.

A sudden turnaround from decline to growth in commencements (driven by the Science without Borders program) has seen Brazil retake its place from Colombia as the second most important source country after China. Thailand maintains 4th place ahead of South Korea. Vietnam also maintains its new position in 6th place, ahead of Japan and Saudi Arabia. This month, with +93% YTD growth, India has replaced Spain in 9th place, overtaking Taiwan in doing so.

Click here to view the AEI Summary.

English Australia Member Colleges and Corporate Affiliates can access a detailed analysis of the data from an ELICOS perspective by logging in to the following section of the English Australia website:

COLLEGES » Services & Resources » Statistics/Research

Agents can access a summary of the key trends plus the ELICOS commencements for the top 100 ELICOS source countries by logging in to the following section of the English Australia website:

AGENTS » Agent Resources