Tag: international education

A new take on international education student enrolment data by region: Experimenting with Tableau mapping

The Department of Education, Skills and Employment provide the international education sector in Australia with a large amount of very useful data on international students studying within our borders. Much of it is provided in a number of formats – from pivot tables made available through Austrade’s Market Information Package to a range of data visualisations on the Department’s website itself.

Being a data visualisation aficionado and and analytics working in this field for nearly nine years now, I have used these resources heavily. However, one area that I had not particularly visited often was the Department’s international student … Read the rest

NZIEC 2017: Some reflections on a whirlwind trip to Auckland.

On the flight back to Australia, I got the opportunity to reflect a little on the New Zealand International Education Conference I had just attended in Auckland. Overall, a fun, though slightly tiring, slog across the Tasman. I got to meet a heap of new people in and around the conference and was lucky enough to be involved in two sessions.

On Tuesday, I spent 30 minutes talking to delegates about how to build the analytical mindset during my session called Getting started in the Data Game. Mostly, I was emphasising the base skills needed in analytics and how … Read the rest

Let the good times roll: March student visa statistics indicate continued growth in Australian international education.

Just last week, it happened that I was sitting at home in front of my laptop with a glass of red wine in my hand when I noted the Department of Immigration and Border Protection had released their latest visa statistics on international students.

This sounds a tad depressing in retrospect, but the mood did strike. I decided to boot up my trusty excel models to quickly cut up some of the statistics to see what insights might be developed from the visa numbers.

Given that international student visa grant rates have a strong correlation with international student commencements, these … Read the rest

The Data Game: Building Analytics Capability in International Education

[Originally published by IEAA’s Vista Magazine (Summer 2016/17) — I’d strongly recommend following them online and reading their publications if you’re interested in Australian international education!]

Embracing an analytic mindset and capitalising on the technologies in the era of big data are key to reaching Australia’s strategic international education goals, writes Darragh Murray.

A tale of prediction and teenage pregnancy

In 2012, journalist Charles Duhigg came across a fascinating story concerning the power of prediction and teenage pregnancy. Writing for the New York Times, Duhigg told how an irate man confronted the manager of a Target department store … Read the rest

Australian international education market performs well in ICEF agent barometer

The ever comprehensive ICEF Monitor has published some early results from their eight annual agent barometer survey (co published with iGraduate).

Given the lifting on the ban on foreign agents in US institutions, it is perhaps not unexpected that agents would be referring more students to US institutions – the barometer reports that 80% of agents expect to send more students to the US.

Australia places highly in the metric, with around about 68% of agents stating they’ll be sending students down under. Promisingly for Australia, only 27% of agents reported issues with students getting visas – down from 43% … Read the rest

Internships, work experience needed for international students in Australia

A recent report into graduate opportunities for international students within Australia argues that in order to be competitive with domestic graduates, international students coming out of Australian institutions need to gain far more practical and work-ready skills in order to compete.

Joint research between Deakin University and UTS, Australian International Graduates and the Transition to Employment, provides some valuable business insight into what prospects international students might face if they choose to stay in Australia and compete with domestic students for graduate positions.

The report indicates that international students may be at a profound disadvantage compared to domestic … Read the rest