For the purpose of higher education, every year a large number of students migrate to foreign countries. The growth in the number of students from overseas for higher education to Australia is likely to increase. However, in recent times a slight slowdown in the growth can be seen by 1.9 percent.

According to the new figures provided by Australia Education International, from the month of January to April this year, 58,471 new policies are introduced for higher education which was 1.9% up last year.

However, there was a decline in the commencements of overseas students from all other sectors of education. The figures showed that there were 4.3% decline in Vocational education & training, 18.4% colleges for English language, 19.4% in schools and other category like foundation program was down by 8.9 %.

With a special concern to higher education, the AEI data shows that 44% students come from pathway of ELICOS while 53% VET students from come from ELICOS pathway. The higher education begins from China is growing gradually in the latest data of AEI, however the growth is not getting strong enough. For example: from the month of January to April, this year commencements from China were 24,370 in comparison to 23,339 in the year of 2010 for the same period of time that resulted in 4.4%  growth.

In the year of 2010, the corresponding increase was of 19.6% while in 2009 it was 23.6%.  In the month of April, China reached 39.5% of enrolments for higher education.