Ethnic Backgrounds & Study Choices: International Students in AU

This literature review compares students from Indian, Pakistani, and Vietnamese backgrounds, analyzing factors influencing their choice of Australia as a study destination, course selection, necessary support, and motivation to achieve. It highlights Australia's growing education industry, driven by international students, and examines how factors like university services, facilities, and intercultural interactions impact their decisions. The review also touches upon the challenges faced by international students, including linguistic barriers and the need for tailored learning support, and the trend of Australian institutions offering out-of-state fee structures and employment opportunities to high-achieving international students. This document is available on Desklib, where students can find a wealth of solved assignments and study resources.

Running head: AUSTRALIAN EDUCATIONAL SECTOR
“Comparing international Students from three very different ethnic backgrounds, what most
influences:
1) Selection of Australia as the destination to study;
2) Selection of course of study;
3) Support necessary to achieve in that study
4) Maintaining motivation to achieve in that study and WHY?”
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1AUSTRALIAN EDUCATIONAL SECTOR
Aim of the Report – The following literature review aims to compare the students belonging
to the different ethnic backgrounds mainly from the Indian, Pakistani and the Vietnamese
backgrounds and the factors that influence the decisions of the students regarding their choice
of the course of study.
Objectives of the Report – The objective of the following literature review is to identify
influences of the various factors on the following topics
 To select the proper educational destination as Australia
 To select the course to be studied in Australia
 To properly support the facts that is necessary to achieve the required success in the
concerned field of the study
 To properly maintain the motivation that is required to gain success in the concerned
field of knowledge and the reason for the maintenance of that motivation
Industry Benefits – The Australian education industry seems to be highly benefitting from
the students who come in from the developing countries like India, Pakistan and Vietnam.
There is noticed a huge increase in the revenue that is generated in the country due to the
increase in the number of the students of foreign origin in the country.

2AUSTRALIAN EDUCATIONAL SECTOR
Australia has been turning into an education hub in the recent times with a number of
students foreign to the land being interested in the courses of study that are being offered by
the universities of Australia. The objective of this literature review is to study the main
factors that influence the decisions of the students on the factors regarding the selection of the
destination and the topic of the study for pursuing their education abroad. The literature
review also sheds light on the support that is needed to achieve the needed success in the
selected course of study and the maintenance of the motivation that is needed to achieve in
the selected subject matter that is to be studied and the reasons that makes it necessary for the
maintenance of that motivation.
A considerable amount of studies has been conducted on the educational backgrounds
of the students in Australia who have been pursuing their higher studies (Devlin, 2013). Smit
(2012) argues that there has been a tendency to look down upon the earlier experiences in the
field of education in a manner that demonstrates them to be in a deficit framework.
According to Hawthorne (2014), India has been one of the one of the top ten countries which
act as the sources of GSM in Australia. The number of Indian students that have migrated to
Australia for educational purposes have been considerably high. According to the 2006
Census, there have been 49, 106 students of Indian origin who had migrated to the Australian
shores for the purpose of education and employment. The Australian government had brought
about changes in its programs that were related to the migration of the skilled personnel to
Australia. A review revealed that the revenue generated by the enrolment of the foreign
students helped the generation of the overall revenue of the country to grow up to $A18
billion every year. The Australian Government Education market has often described India as
one of the major sources of the international students who have accounted for almost 11,684
students. The students of the Pakistani nationality account for 3762 student enrolments
(Catterall, Aitchison and Rolls 2016). According to the report of the Australian embassy

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situated in Vietnam, Australia tops the list of the preferred country for pursuing the higher
education among the Vietnamese population. Australia is known to provide a higher quality
of education at all levels starting from the school level to the levels of higher education as
well as the short term courses (Vietnam.embassy.gov.au 2017).
It is often argued that the homogeneity of pedagogy and the curricula owe a lot to the
contribution of the neoliberal discourses of managerialism, uniformity and accountability
(Neoh 2017).It may also, however, be opined that the differences in the perceptions of the
students who belong to various cultural backgrounds may help to bring about a curriculum
that may be more inclusive, internationalized and differentiated (Song 2014). The
international students are treated to be a part of the same homogeneous group who are
differentiated on the basis of the language that they speak. The international students are also
differentiated on the basis of their academic performance as compared to the students who
converse in the western academic style of speaking of the English Language. According to
Marginson (2015), the higher education institutions that are constrained financially depend
heavily on the international student market to boost their financial viabilities. The students
who are admitted to these colleges are likely to get acquainted with the aspects of the
disciplinary and the academic cultures of the Occident (Floyd 2015; Benzie 2015). The
students belonging to the other countries except Australia need to have more than just the
knowledge of the linguistic barriers that exist between them and their native peers (Wingate
and Tribble 2012).
Zevallos (2012) argues that the Australian universities depend upon the international
students, who are enrolled to the courses offered by the concerned universities, for their
procurement of revenue but fail to address the special learning needs of these students. Thus
these students find it difficult to secure a job for themselves in their respective fields of study
after graduating from these educational institutions. According to Dao and Thorpe (2015), the

4AUSTRALIAN EDUCATIONAL SECTOR
major factors that influence the decisions of the students on the choice of the international
universities include the services and the facilities that are offered by the concerned university,
the programs offered, the information regarding the concerned institution that is available in
both the online and the offline mode of information and other such factors. According to
Pham and Tran (2015), the intercultural interaction between the students plays a very
important role in the wellbeing and the learning of the international students in the country
where the chosen educational institution is situated. According to De Wit (2015), it has been
a recent trend among the Australian educational institutes to introduce the out of the sate fee
structure for the international students on the campus. The international students who have
been faring well in their academic careers are also being offered employment in the host
country thereby resulting in a brain drain of the country to which the international students
belong. The international students do evolve their identities based on the social network
circles in which they do operate thereby helping them to improve the identity that they had
inherited from their own culture (Pham and Saltmarsh 2013).

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References
Title of the Article Author name Year Source of the reference with Page
numbers
Third space
strategists:
International
students negotiating
the transition from
Pathway program to
postgraduate
coursework degree.
Benzie, H. 2015
International Education Journal:
Comparative Perspectives, 14(3),
pp.17-31.
Disconnected
pedagogies:
Experiences of
international
students in higher
education.
Catterall, J.,
Aitchison, C. and
Rolls, N.
2016
Journal of Academic Language and
Learning, 10(2), pp.A70-A79.
What factors
influence
Vietnamese
students’ choice of
university?
Dao, M.T.N. and
Thorpe, A. 2015 International Journal of Educational
Management, 29(5), pp.666-681.
Recent trends and
issues in
international student
mobility
De Wit, H. 2015 International Higher Education,
(59).
Bridging socio-
cultural incongruity:
Conceptualising the
success of students
from low socio-
economic status
backgrounds in
Australian higher
education.
Devlin, M. 2013 Studies in Higher Education, 38(6),
pp.939-949
Closing the gap:
International student
pathways, academic
performance and
academic
acculturation.
Floyd, C.B. 2015
Journal of Academic Language and
Learning, 9(2), pp.A1-A18.
Indian students and
the evolution of the
study‐migration
pathway in
Australia.
Hawthorne, L. 2014 International Migration, 52(2), pp.3-
19.
Is Australia Marginson, S. 2015 International Higher Education,

6AUSTRALIAN EDUCATIONAL SECTOR
overdependent on
international
students?
(54).
Neoliberal
education?
Comparing
Character and
Citizenship
Education in
Singapore and
Civics and
Citizenship
Education in
Australia.
Neoh, J.Y. 2017
JSSE-Journal of Social Science
Education, 16(3).
International
students’ identities
in a globalized
world: Narratives
from Vietnam.
Pham, L. and
Saltmarsh, D. 2013
. Journal of Research in
International Education, 12(2),
pp.129-141.
Understanding the
symbolic capital of
intercultural
interactions: A case
study of
international
students in Australia.
Pham, L. and Tran,
L. 2015 International Studies in Sociology of
Education, 25(3), pp.204-224.
Towards a clearer
understanding of
student disadvantage
in higher education:
Problematising
deficit thinking.
Smit, R. 2012 Higher Education Research &
Development, 31(3), pp.369-380.
Changing social
relations in higher
education: the first
year international
student and the
“Chinese learner” in
Australia.
Song, X. 2014
Universities in transition:
Foregrounding social contexts of
knowledge in the first year
experience, pp.127-156.
Study in Australia.
[online]
Vietnam.embassy.go
v.au.
Vietnam.embassy.g
ov.au 2017
Available at:
http://vietnam.embassy.gov.au/hnoi/
study.html [Accessed 29 Nov. 2017].
The best of both
worlds? Towards an
English for
Academic
Purposes/Academic
Literacies writing
pedagogy.
Wingate, U. and
Tribble, C. 2012 Studies in Higher Education, 37(4),
pp.481-495.

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Context and
outcomes of
intercultural
education amongst
international
students in Australia.
Zevallos, Z. 2012 Intercultural Education, 23(1),
pp.41-49.