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The following is an interview record:
Moderator: Hello, netizens, and welcome to the series of interviews with People's Daily Education Channel 20 12 on studying abroad and visa policies of embassies in China. Today, we are very pleased to invite Ms. Xu, the Education Commissioner for North Asia of the Australian Trade Commission and the Education Consul of the Commercial Office of the Australian Embassy. Hello, Ms. Xu. Welcome. First of all, say hello to the netizens of People's Daily Online.
X: Hello. Hello everyone,
Moderator: In the study abroad market, it is very different now from the past. People pay more attention to countries outside Britain and America, such as Australia, and gradually occupy people's sight. In an immigrant country like Australia, immigration policy is one of the main reasons for attracting many students. In fact, more and more high school students choose to apply for further study in Australian universities after graduation. Ms. Xu, first of all, please introduce Australian higher education to netizens.
Xu: First of all, I want to say that my Mandarin is not very good. So I'll talk about an important point in English first, and then my colleague Miss Xu will make a supplement in Chinese.
As we all know, Australia has a long history of education. The first Australian university was established in 1850. There are 39 universities in Australia, including 37 public universities and 2 private universities. These universities belong to higher education. Higher education mainly refers to bachelor's degree or above, which are all covered in our education AQF, that is, the Australian academic framework system, covering 16 different academic degrees.
Another point we want to emphasize is that for many students, education in Australia is somewhat different from that in China in the process of teaching and learning. In China, we usually pay attention to the transmission from teachers to students, while in Australia, we pay more attention to the process of teaching and learning. We advise students who are going to study in Australia to make full use of all your resources. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. You can make progress with your classmates, learn from them, take the initiative to learn from teachers, and make full use of these surrounding resources.
Moderator: So, by 20 12 this year, what new study abroad policies have been introduced in Australia?
Xu: I am very happy to share with you a series of preferential measures recently introduced for students studying in Australia. Australia has a bill for the protection of international students, which is the first to adopt national legislation to protect more rights and interests of international students. Therefore, last year, the government passed a series of amendments to the bill, including some protection systems for tuition fees to strengthen the protection of the rights and interests of international students. One more thing, in order to further implement these laws, we reviewed student visas last year. After the publication of the report, there will be a simplified international student visa processing procedure; Australian graduates also have work visas for two to four years; In addition, the right to work is 40 hours every two weeks. There are also language requirements. In addition to IELTS scores, DIAC began to accept the test scores of TOEFL, iBT, Pearson Test of English Academic English and CambridgeAdvancedEnglish as proof of students' English proficiency when applying for visas. It is a series of preferential measures for international students.
Moderator: Once this work visa is issued, international students will increase their strength and competitiveness in the process of looking for a job even if they plan to return to China, because the experience of working abroad is actually beneficial to the development of all industries and jobs in our country.
Recently, we found a news in official website of the University of Sydney that China students can apply for the University of Sydney based on their college entrance examination results. What do you think of this news?
Xu: As you may know, the University of Sydney recently announced a very exciting news, not only for Australian students, but also for China students, and directly accepted the results of the college entrance examination as the admission criteria. In fact, this is not an emergency. As early as 2008-2009, the government made a research report on the college entrance examination system in China, which proved that the college entrance examination can be used as an effective way to select students. The University of Sydney began to accept college entrance examination results as admission criteria. In fact, I have explained two points to you, mainly from the perspective of the University of Sydney. As an enrollment student, I want to attract the best students in China. For another example, in Australia, not only the University of Sydney, Macquarie University, the University of South Australia, and western sydney have actually begun to accept the college entrance examination results of a domestic student in China, which will be a possible measure for a series of schools to attract more students from China to study in Australia.
Moderator: We can see that the officials of Australian universities have also done some research on the college entrance examination.
We understand that Australian student visas now accept both IELTS and TOEFL scores. Can you introduce the new requirements and policies in this regard?
Xu: As you may know, IELTS used to be the only standard for students studying in persson, but since last year, 1 1.5, our immigration visa office announced a new standard, that is, we began to take TOEFL, Cambridge Advanced English, Academic English and other tests, and the other three tests were also used as a standard in language, but they were specific.
Moderator: In fact, it provides great convenience for our students who apply for the exam. We can choose a more suitable language test according to our own characteristics.
X: It provides greater flexibility for students who are about to study in Australia to prepare for language exams, and makes more humanized policy considerations for domestic students who are about to study in Australia.
Moderator: If he meets the relevant language requirements, does he need other higher-level language training before entering his own professional courses?
X: If the applicant meets the requirements of the main courses, he can go directly to the school for further study. If you don't meet the English proficiency standard of the school's specific enrollment, you may need to attend an intensive English class. After reaching that standard, you will usually enter the next stage of your study. Because in Australian universities, you can mainly examine students in two aspects, one is their overall academic level at ordinary times, and the other is whether your English meets their admission requirements. So students who fail to meet the requirements may need to take a short-term intensive English course first.
Moderator: The specific academic requirements are still ranked first. Compared with domestic foreign students, can you introduce some popular majors that foreign students can choose to study?
Xu: In Australia, the academic level and teaching quality of almost all universities are very high, and the effect is very consistent. For every university, there are some advantageous disciplines. Perhaps for China students, usually more students and parents prefer to choose business and management. In fact, in Australia, energy, mineral resources processing, architectural design, biomedicine and other industries are very good industries. Maybe you don't know, the post-production of some movies and TV series, like many blockbusters, is done in Australia, so the arts and creative industries are promising emerging and sunrise industries in the future.
Another point we want to emphasize is that in China, the education market is huge, so studying in Australia also has a very good future employment prospect.