When representatives of the Sydney Institute of Science and Technology were in Beijing on February 14 to enroll students, the recruiting hall was packed with enthusiastic Chinese students,according to the latest issue of Beijing Review..

For days, senior school students, college students and college graduates seeking information about the institute also jammed the intermediary agency, which had advertised the enrollment in newspapers.

Over the past decade, the intermediary agency alone has helped more than 10,000 Chinese students go to Australia, 8,000 of whom have already earned degrees. According to some statistics, the total number of Chinese students in Australia reached 60,000.

The number is still on the rise as Australia steps up its enrollment of foreign students in a bid to generate foreign currency income as Canada, Britain and Singapore have been doing.

Australia started to accept students from the Chinese Mainland in 1985, most of whom paid their own way. Although the United States outnumbers Australia in terms of Chinese students, the latter has far more self-supporting Chinese students.

According to Li Ping, President of the Association of Chinese Students in Australia, Australia is attractive to Chinese students for the following four reasons:

It is an English-speaking country and is good in terms of the quality of education offered; Students feel safer living there because of the stable society and relatively low incidence of criminal activity; It has a good medical care system, which guarantees students necessary medical services; Living and education expenses are lower than in the United States and Canada.