Australia and New Zealand have been boosting their attempts to attract Indian students. Both the countries have strengthened their position as the preferred education destination outside of North America.

According to Australian Government’s Department of Education and Training, there are 70,116 Indian students enrolled for various study levels (Source: https://internationaleducation.gov.au/). The numbers have been rising since 2013. There were 40,130 in July 2013, 50,709 in July 2015 and 60,835 in July 2016. PG courses from Australia are very popular with Indian students. Of the 67,279 students currently in the country, 41,441 are enrolled for higher education courses. The most popular subject areas among Indian students are – management and commerce, food, hospitality and personal services, engineering and related technologies and information technology.

One of the reasons for the surge in enrolment by Indian students is the availability of scholarships in these countries. There are multiple scholarships and fellowships funded by the Australian Government who are looking for research opportunities.

A similar trend has been observed for New Zealand. 29,000 Indian students went to New Zealand in 2015. According to John Laxon, Middle East and acting South Asia regional director at Education New Zealand, it is the only country to have all of its institutions ranked in top 3% of the world (QS World University Rankings 2015). The most popular courses for Indian students are management and commerce, business and information technology. However, niche subject areas such as sports management, cyber security, aviation, animation and fashion are becoming popular with Indian students. Like Australia, even New Zealand has boosted the number of scholarships for Indian students which could be the reason for increasing number of enrolments by Indian students.

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