Even as the Victorian Police has been quoted as backing the Indian government’s travel advisory issued to current and prospective Indian students to Australia to take safety precautions, figures released by Australia’s immigration department reveals a 46 per cent drop in Indian student applications from 20,557 to 11,183 for the period July to October 2009 compared to the corresponding period in 2008.

What is significant is that this drop is reflective of an overall 26 per cent fall of student applications from the world over indicating possible trouble for Australia’s $(Aus)17-billion education industry, the country’s third largest source of export. Applications from Nepal declined by a staggering 85 per cent (from 5,696 to 845) and from Korea, Brazil and the United States by 20 per cent.

However, an upward trend was visible in student visa applications from Vietnam (up by 19 per cent) and China (0.2 per cent).

While it is difficult to analyse to what extend media reports of attacks on Indian students has adversely influenced prospective students from applying for admission to Australian educational institutions, there are definitely two other factors that have significantly contributed to the decline. First, Australia has severely tightened its student visa policy leading to a large percentage of rejections of Indian student visa applications. Second, 41 private vocational education institutions are undergoing a rapid audit for their credentials and viability in the state of Victoria alone.

Almost a dozen private vocational institutions have shut down in Melbourne and Sydney in the last six months, displacing hundreds of overseas students, many of them from India. Most Indian students in Australia are enrolled in private vocational institutions to study courses such as hospitality, cookery, auto mechanics, etc, with the sole motive of seeking permanent residency. Indian students mostly drive taxis and work in petrol stations and stores to earn a living.

Victoria, which has the largest concentration of Indian students, has witnessed a spate of attacks on Indian-origin people, many of them students.

The killing of 21-year-old Nitin Garg, an Indian student-turned permanent resident, earlier this month is the second killing of an Indian-origin person in the last three months. The body of Nitin is scheduled to reach New Delhi on Saturday afternoon.
The perception that Indians are being selectively and deliberately targeted is untrue. In fact incidents of indiscriminate assaults and street violence has been on the rise in multi-cultural Melbourne over the last one year by weapon-wielding youth, mostly in their teens and early 20s. Most of the victims are Caucasian themselves.

Meanwhile, the police this afternoon conducted a random three-hour search of 182 persons at Footscray railway station, close to where Nitin Garg was fatally stabbed earlier this month. The police recovered 12 weapons comprising knives, a machete and knuckledusters from seven persons. The police has intensified efforts to identify the person(s) who fatally stabbed Nitin.

New Delhi, January 7
With racial attacks continuing unabated Down Under, External Affairs Minister S M Krishna has advised both parents and students to be more discreet in choosing educational institutes and courses of study in Australia.

The minister’s statement, coming in the wake of the fatal attack on an Indian student and the recovery of the charred body of another Indian, is bound to further affect the flow of Indian students to Australia.

“First I had my own doubts about Indian students going to Australia in large numbers to pursue higher studies… I can understand if it is the level of universities, IITs or some other institutions of excellence,” he told reporters today on the margins of a function organised by the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) to release two books on China.

He recalled that when he visited Australia in August last year, he was shocked to find that many Indian students were coming there for courses for which they don’t need to go there, like hair style or facial. “There are a number of excellent institutes in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore for such courses… I would advise the students and also tell parents that they should be more discreet in choosing Australia for higher education for their children.”

Emphasising that the security of Indians in Australia was a major concern for the government, he observed that the dividing line between a ‘race attack’ and what is being called an ‘opportunistic urban crime’ by the Australian authorities was rapidly declining.

“The whole thing will have to be looked into in the right perspective. None of us need to be hysterical, but all that we expect is that Indians, whether students or otherwise, should be safe in the countries to which they go for pursuing higher studies. That is the least we expect,” he added.

The Foreign Minister also had a brief meeting with Australian High Commissioner to India Peter Verghese, who too was present at the book release function. The Australian envoy is understood to have assured Krishna that the authorities in Australia were making all possible efforts to track down those who killed Nitin Garg, an Indian student hailing from Punjab, last week.