Appetite for Education
Paul Angus, Education Sector Lead (NSW & ACT) | AECOM
The current Covid-19 crisis has provided an incentive to pause, reflect and reconsider how exactly the current education system can adapt to the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Education in today’s world needs to equip today’s young people with the skills to thrive in a tomorrow’s world……even if we don’t know what exactly it looks like yet, when you consider that up to 50% of today’s work activities could be fully automated by 2055. There will always be an appetite for education, a thirst for knowledge, and the ability to adapt and retrain, but how exactly can today's education facilities prepare students for a world that doesn't yet exist? Paradise Campus
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ince the start of ‘lockdown’, the majority of university campuses all around the globe have suddenly found themselves empty. Corridors, usually filled with laughter and discussion, are eerily quiet. Lecture theatres and classrooms that were bursting with enthusiasm and knowledge sharing at the start of the year are now all desolate. Did you know that before COVID-19 struck, around five million students were undertaking degrees outside their home country. However, travel restrictions and social isolation measures around the world have and will continue to reduce the numbers of international students dramatically. This is a major concern, especially when you
consider that the education sector is a major contributor to Australia’s economy, with extraordinary numbers of international students enrolling at Australian universities. For example, in 2019, there were 720,150 international students in Australia. That is an 11% growth on the previous year, which catapulted Australia’s position, as the second-most popular destination in the world for study abroad, only after the United States of America.
Five countries compose more than half of all international student enrolments in the country: • China (28% of the total)
• India (15% of the total)
• Nepal (7% of the total)
• Brazil (4% of the total)
• Vietnam (3.5% of the total)
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