No mention of tough visa rules

In an article published in The Jakarta Post on May 3, I was quoted by Duncan Graham as citing, in my presentation at the recent IABC Conference, "tough visa rules as a key reason for the 10 percent downturn in Indonesians studying in Australia". This is entirely incorrect and Graham has completely misunderstood/misquoted what I said.

On the topic of Indonesian students studying in Australia, I presented some student visa statistics, which illustrated a downturn in student visa numbers, or, in other words, the number of Indonesian students going to Australia.

The key reasons I cited for this decline were: The higher value of the Australian dollar, increased in-country competition from local and internationally linked education programs, as well as more intensive marketing by other countries in the Southeast Asia region. At no stage did I ever mention tough visa rules, nor was this issue ever raised during the question and answer session that followed.

ISLA ROGERS-WINARTO, Director -- Indonesia and General Manager -- Network IDP Education Australia