A RED carpet will be rolled out for international students in a bid to entice youngsters to Ipswich.
The city has been successful in securing a $10,000 grant to better market the city on the international education stage.
International education is already the second biggest export for Queensland, worth about $4.37 billion to the state’s economy.
Ipswich MP Jennifer Howard said more people were visiting Ipswich than ever before.
“We also have some of the best education institutions in the country – it makes sense,” Ms Howard said.
“That’s why we’re investing in international education in Ipswich. We’re making sure Ipswich Regional Education Consortium has the funding it needs to grow our international education sector in years to come.”
Last year, a working group led by Ipswich City Council considered ways to continue driving growth in the international education sector.
The project was funded through the International Education and Training Partnership Fund which aims to encourage the sector to collaborate and work on innovative projects that position Queensland as a world class destination for international students.
Federal data for 2017 showed Ipswich’s international education market grew by 39.2 per cent with most of Ipswich’s international student enrolments coming from China and India.
University of Southern Queensland student Samikshya Paudel moved to Australia from Nepal in February 2017.
She’s in her second year of studying a bachelor of nursing at USQ Ipswich.
Samikshya said Australia offered a safe environment to study where people at her campus were friendly and the staff supportive.
“I chose to study nursing because it’s a good profession that you can learn every skill from communication to leadership,” Samikshya said, in June when new figures on international students were released.
“After university my plan is to return to my home country and apply the skills I have learnt at USQ to help people in my country.”
Today, Tourism Industry Development Minister and Ministerial Champion for International Education Kate Jones said the $10,000 in funding for Ipswich Regional Education Consortium was part of a wider Study Queensland campaign.
Ms Jones said Study Queensland’s ‘Start here. Go anywhere’ campaign was devised after months of market research to discover what motivates students to choose Queensland above other states.
“More students from across the globe are choosing to travel to Queensland every year and our international education industry has grown by around 12 per cent in the last year.
“But we know we can do more to support the student experience and ensure sustained growth in the future. This campaign is all about capitalising on our great foundation to increase our share of the international education market.
“International education currently supports around 19,000 jobs across the state. With this new campaign, we hope to grow this industry to support an extra 6800 jobs by 2026.
“That’s why we’re investing more than $25 million in this space to grow our international education sector.”
Source: www.qt.com.au