WA International Student Numbers Growth: A Closer Look

Yesterday, the Koala looked at March YTD numbers of international student commencements. WA stood out.

As reported yesterday, WA’s commencements are:

Commencements against same time 2019 – WA is up 47.1 per cent overall. Up 63.5 per cent in Higher Ed, up 46.5 per cent in VET, down 31.7 per cent in Schools, up 29.5 per cent in ELICOS and up 9.6 per cent in Non-award

Let’s take a closer look at where the growth is coming from, with attention to the same time in 2019.

WA – Higher Education

Higher education is 63.5 per cent up and is 54 per cent of the commencements in WA

Masters by Coursework is up 132 per cent from 2386 in 19 to 5539 in 23

Within this category, the detailed field of study major movers was:

Engineering and Related Technologies, n.e.c. – up 195.7 per cent from 161 to 476

Business Management – up 196 per cent from 110 to 326

Information Technology, n.f.d. – up 172.7 per cent from 143 to 290

Management and Commerce, n.f.d. – up 174 per cent from 87 to 239

Project Management – up  337 per cent from 65 to 284

Sociology – up 180 per cent from 96 to 269

Teacher Education – up 350 per cent from 42 to 189

Across the Masters by Courseworkcategory, the top 10 Countries are:

Bhutan

Bhutan is clearly the headline story in WA, with 2023 providing a bonanza of commencements.

Overall, the pattern of enrolments and commencements is as follows:

What are they studying? Bhutanese Masters Category Commencement numbers 2019-2023 are as follows:

WA continues to pioneer new source counties, which should be applauded. Diversity is a good thing and key to a sustainable student pipeline that is risk mitigated. However, the level at which Bhutanese commencements are flowing to WA poses a risk for dependence. This is no longer a diversity strategy; this is market dependence. Should factors back in Bhutan restrict student flows it would impact WA significantly.

The Koala will be keeping an eye on this.

WA – VET

WA’s VET growth appears to be largely from Certificate III programs growing from 882 in 2019 to 1706 in 2023. The top 5 Cert 111 programs of growth are:

It would appear cookery is back in WA, and with only 55 commencers going into cookery at a government provider, it is the private providers with the culinary advances.

Nationalities in the commencers top 5 for cookery at Cert III level are:

Nationalities in the commencers top 5 for Vehicle Mechanics at Cert III level are: