A new survey of 6,000 prospective international students, conducted by student recruitment agency IDP and released on Thursday, found that students set on Australia were increasingly less willing to wait as the UK and Canada were more freely allowing students in.
Errol Phuah, the national president of the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations, said Australia’s vaccine rollout was far behind Canada, the UK or the US.
“These are our competing countries, and they are smashing us,” he told Guardian Australia.
The IDP survey found that for students still planning on coming to Australia, only 7% said they would continue to study if their courses were fully online.