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Statement on international students at the University of Sydney

26 November 2018
In response to questions from the ABC regarding English language proficiency of international students, the University of Sydney provided the following response which was not included in a story published on Sunday.

We are proud of and acknowledge the contribution that international students make to the academic and cultural life of the University. International students provide an opportunity for the future leaders of Australia and other countries to make connections and establish lifelong networks.

Our students come from over 130 countries and we are working hard to further diversify our international student population.  We have already seen an increase in students from the USA and Canada and we are currently looking to increase the number of students we recruit from India and Southeast Asia.

Given China’s population, location within our region and ongoing strong growth in demand for high quality international education, we would anticipate continuing to attract substantial numbers of Chinese students. Diversification of income is important for any large organisation and we are pursuing an income diversification strategy to manage this risk.

With the exception of several music performance degrees, the University's minimum IELTS requirement is an overall score of 6.5 with no band below 6.0, and many degrees have higher requirements. Our English language proficiency standards are similar to other Go8 universities and, for some courses, our IELTs requirements are higher.

We believe they are at appropriate levels. Communication (oral and written) is one of the University’s graduate qualities and the University will assess this and other qualities for all graduates from 2020 to provide students with additional feedback on their communication skills.

Success rate for domestic students in 2017 was 91.86 percent and 91.62 percent for international students. In terms of graduate outcomes, the University of Sydney is currently ranked fifth in the world for graduate employability in the QS Graduate Employability Rankings 2019.