The online survey of more than 1600 international students from more than 10 Australian universities shows that 24 per cent are studying overseas in the hope of gaining permanent residency, up from 5 per cent when the question was asked in a similar survey in 2005.

Earlier this month, the Immigration Minister, Chris Evans, announced an overhaul of the skilled migration system, which had almost guaranteed permanent residency to foreign students of certain trade courses.

The new arrangements, which will give priority to skilled migrants who have a job lined up with an Australian employer, have been generally welcomed by universities, but private colleges, the fastest growing sector of Australia’s $17 billion-a-year international education industry have predicted catastrophe.

Respondents to the survey, conducted in November and December by the marketing agency JWT Education, rated Australia’s quality of education as slightly poorer than that of its main competitors, the United States and Britain.

But despite a year of damaging publicity following a number of attacks on Indians, particularly in Melbourne, survey respondents rated Australia a safer place to study than any other country, including the US, Britain, Canada and New Zealand.

The quality of education was the factor most likely to be considered by students when choosing a country, but the issue of safety was increasingly important, with nearly two in three respondents saying they took safety into account when making their decision.

The belief that Australia was ”a safe country” was the reason most commonly cited for choosing Australia, followed by the belief that it is a multicultural or tolerant society.

The proportion of Indians who chose Australia for safety reasons (35 per cent) was smaller than the proportion of all respondents who did (45 per cent). Indians were more likely to cite ”good career prospects” for their choice.

When asked about their overall satisfaction with their Australian study experience, only 6 per cent said they were not satisfied, with a slightly higher proportion of Indian respondents (9 per cent) expressing dissatisfaction.

Meanwhile, the federal opposition is pressing the Rudd government to reveal the balance of the fund which provides refunds to international students in the event of college collapses.

The West Australian Liberal senator Mathias Cormann has suggested the fund may be ”about to run dry” after a number of recent closures of colleges.

Education Department officials did not disclose the balance of the fund when questioned by senators last week.

In the 18 months to last June, it had to pay out $4.2 million. At that time, $3.4 million remained in the fund.

The federal Education Department and the office of the Education Minister, Julia Gillard, referred questions about the balance of the fund to its manager, PricewaterhouseCoopers, which did not respond to questions on Friday.

A spokesman for Ms Gillard said international students who could not be placed in a similar course to the one for which they had paid were guaranteed a refund by legislation.

Source: Smh.com.au

Two and a half years on, students have been lumbered with “glorified typewriters” as the Government drags the chain on high-speed internet access in high schools.

Yesterday it was confirmed none of the $100 million budgeted to bring high-speed broadband to schools had been spent after more than two years of Labor in power.

As the Prime Minister comes under fire for yet another broken election promise, support for Labor has slumped in his home state, with a resurgent Coalition in the lead for the first time since the 2007 election.

The latest Galaxy poll, exclusively for The Courier-Mail, reveals support for Tony Abbott’s Opposition surged by six points since November to 46 per cent, while support for federal Labor fell three points to 39 per cent.

It follows a testing week for Labor when the Prime Minister was held to account over broken election promises and his Government besieged by allegations of mismanagement of the insulation and green loans program.

Mr Rudd defended his Government’s record yesterday, saying he was proud of its achievements, and blamed the global financial crisis for some unfulfilled commitments.

“In dealing with the challenges of the global recession, obviously some changes had to be made because of the impact on government finances,” the Prime Minister told Channel 10.

“I accept that and take full responsibility for it.”

In the latest setback to hit the digital education revolution, the rollout of fast broadband in schools has stalled while the Government investigates how to make its $43 billion National Broadband Network a reality.

Latest figures show 220,000 of the promised one million computers are on students’ desks, leaving the Government 22 months to deliver the rest to meet its deadline.

In the 2007 campaign, Mr Rudd declared the laptop the “toolbox of the 21st century”.

Queensland Liberal senator Brett Mason blasted the Government, saying the Department of Education had admitted last week there was no time frame for delivering the promised fast internet connections and no cost estimate.

“In the meantime, those lucky few among the million secondary students who would have received a computer on their desk will basically just have glorified typewriters to use,” he said.

A spokesman for Education Minister Julia Gillard said the Government had committed $100 million to increase broadband to schools as part of the NBN plan, with the implementation study for the project due this month.

“No funds have yet been spent under the high speed broadband to schools component of the digital education revolution,” he said.

“Following the NBN implementation study, our intention is to proceed with the implementation of this initiative in co-ordination with other government broadband initiatives, including the NBN.”

Education Queensland said there were currently no state schools with high-speed broadband access.

Source: Couriermail