Decline in Indian students not that bad

AAP
30 December 2009
Source:http://www.thechronicle.com.au
 

A PROJECTED sharp decline in the number of Indian students studying in Australia next year could be reversed in 2011 as concerns diminish about violent attacks.
 
New tourism forecasts, released on Wednesday, predict a 21 per cent drop in education arrivals from India, resulting in an economic loss of $78 million.
 
The decline has been attributed to a spate of attacks on Indian students that cast a shadow over the Australian education industry in mid-2009.
 
Up to 4,000 fewer Indian students will travel to Australia in 2010, after growth of 35 per cent this year, Tourism Forecasting Committee data estimates.
 
Gautam Gupta, the president of the Federation of Indian Students of Australia, says the forecast is not as bad as his organisation first predicted.
 
"We were predicting a drop of about 50 per cent," he told ABC Radio on Wednesday.
 
"So, if the drop is about 20 per cent, that's significantly lower than what was the prediction about three months back."
 
Indian student numbers could rebound as soon as 2011 if the attack rate continued to fall, Mr Gupta said.
 
Forecasting committee chairman Bernard Salt says it is the first time anybody has put a figure on the impact of concerns about the treatment of Indian students in Australia.
 
"I suppose the query is whether, in fact, this is a structural issue that will be with us for some time, that is, one-fifth of the market has been evaporated, or whether, in fact, this is a knee-jerk, one-year reaction," he said.