Vocational education and training courses appear to be the hot new growth area for Australia’s international-education market, with a 44-percent increase in foreign enrollments over the previous year, according to July 2008 statistics released by the government this month and reported in The Australian newspaper on Wednesday.

Universities still attract most of the foreign students who come to Australia to study. But today nearly one-third of international students — or 142,000 — are enrolled in vocational education, up from 25 percent in 2007, noted Australian Education International, an office of the government’s Education Department.

There has been no official explanation for the sudden sharp rise in enrollments. Vocational training may be becoming more popular in part because fees at vocational colleges are far lower than those charged by universities. Training and skills courses are also shorter, and entrance qualifications are far fewer than those required by universities.

And, while other countries have tightened their visa-screening processes, foreign students who want to travel to Australia to attend an accredited vocational course encounter few restrictions.

The Australian also reported that the country’s “education exports” — the money earned from fees and expenses incurred by overseas students — now total 13.7 billion Australian dollars (or about $11.5-billion), which topped the tourism industry this past year.

As of July, 459,692 foreign students were enrolled in Australian educational institutions, making education the third-largest export in the country. —Martha Ann Overland