Students hear call of Australia

A high school student asks for information at a booth at the China International Education Exhibition Tour 2015 in Beijing on Sunday. (Photo: Kuang Linhua/China Daily)

Australia will see a rise in the number of Chinese middle and high school students heading to the country, overseas studies insiders said.

In March 2014, Australia opened middle-school education to Chinese students, allowing them to study in Australian schools from the seventh grade.

"In an era when more Chinese students are going to study overseas at a younger age, the opening of Australian middle schools offers Chinese students and their parents one more good option," Tian Litie, director of the Australian Department of Chivast Education International, a Beijing-based consulting agency, said at the China International Education Exhibition Tour over the weekend.

Tian cited two reasons for the increase: lower admission requirements and affordable tuition fees because of a favorable exchange rate.

"Now the exchange rate of the Australian dollar to renminbi is below five, which means the expenditure is lower than that of Chinese students studying at middle and high schools in many other hot destinations, such as Britain and the US," said Tian, who has been working in the Australian study consulting area for more than 20 years.

Before that, countries like the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom were hot destinations for Chinese students.

In the US, for example, the number of Chinese students who studied at private high schools has increased from 4,503 in the 2008-09 academic year to 23,795 in the 2012-13 academic year.

On Sunday, the booths of Australian schools and the Australian Embassy to China at the exhibition attracted large numbers of people.

Lin Lina, a Beijing resident who plans to send her daughter to high school in Australia, was among them.

"My daughter is good at English and would like to study abroad early," said Lin, whose daughter is now a ninth-grader in Beijing. "We came for more information after we learned that the environment and education in Australia are good, and the expenses are acceptable."

Eliza Chui, education commissioner for North Asia at the Australian Consulate-General in Shanghai, said that Australia is attractive not only because it provides an environment for learning English, but also because students are trained to have critical thinking and be independent.

According to Tian, public schools in Australia charge A$13,000 to A$15,000 ($10,000 to $12,000) a year.

Statistics from Australia showed that from January to November last year the number of newly registered Chinese students at middle and high schools reached 4,300, up 22 percent year-on-year.