In a little room on Taipei's Fuhsing South Road, a dozen or more college-aged students are pouring through university brochures and pondering over forms in English . . . . a scene that is surely familiar to anyone who has studied in the United States or is planning to. It looks just like any other "academic exchange foundation" specialized in providing information and materials on studying in the U.S. Only this one is a little smaller than most, and the information it provides is on universities in another "New World"--Australia.

To meet the increasing number of people intending to study in Australia, the International Development Program of Australian Universities and Colleges, established under the auspices of the Australian government, held an English-language test in Taipei for the first time last December.

According to the Australian Immigration service, some 1,000 people in the Taiwan area obtained student visas for Australia last year. Although that figure is still a far cry from the 9,000 that go each year on average to the United States, for a country that opened its doors to overseas students just four years ago, it does indicate strong potential.

Education in Australia used to be off limits to foreigners, except for a very small number of students with special circumstances or on international exchange programs, and even then there were fixed quotas.

That policy was changed in 1986, when foreign students were allowed in, providing they pay their own way. Besides being part of the general trend for greater liberalization the world over, the main reason was the poor performance of the country's economy.

Australia's exports of agricultural and mineral resources, on which its economy has long been dependent, have slumped in recent years because of a labor shortage, a lack of competitive ability and other factors, and that has adversely affected educational funding, leading to a deterioration in facilities and a loss of faculty . . . . With that in mind, the Australian government began looking toward education as a revenue-earning resource, hoping that schools could boost their incomes by taking in foreign students, in the same way the country as a whole was seeking to attract well-heeled immigrant investors, or business migrants.

Japan and the Four Tigers of Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Korea -- all regional neighbors with booming economies--are the universities' "target clientele." Some of them have sent out representatives to "push sales" on location or have set up overseas offices to help process applications.

Australia's change in policy has meant one more option for people on Taiwan wishing to study overseas. With English as its official language, obviating the need to learn another foreign language, along with its relative proximity to Taiwan, its similarity in climate and its spacious and comfortable living environment, Australia makes for a highly competitive choice. And as word has gotten around that the limit on part-time work for foreign students has been "generously" lifted to 20 hours a week (remember the labor shortage), more and more people have been going there for long-term or short-term study.

The considerable number of Taiwan student in Australia is also related to the influx of business migrants. Many families thinking of immigrating send a college-age son or daughter ahead first to do some preliminary scouting, whether to minimize risks or because of a temporary delay in their plans.

Since not all of the students going there have their minds set completely on studying, there are inevitably those who don't enroll in official universities because their English is poor, their grades don't measure up or they just don't want to study too hard. According to statistics compiled by the International Development Program of Australian Universities and Colleges and other overseas study agencies in Taipei, 50 percent of the students from Taiwan in Australia at present are enrolled in language schools or other short-term programs.

Viewed in one aspect, Australia's policy to admit foreign students has indeed paid off. The more than 40,000 students who have gone there during the past four years have brought in over 170 million Australian dollars (about US$140 million) in tuition, making education the country's fastest growing sector of foreign exchange earnings. But throwing open the door has also meant that applying for short-term study has become an illicit by-path for entering the country.

Quite a few problems have cropped up as a result. In particular, "students" from poor countries tend to "vanish" as soon as they enter the country. Instead of going to class they look for work to earn money, and when their visas expire they stay on.

The year before last, for instance, when the Australian government promised to extend the visas of mainland Chinese students by four years in the wake of the Tienanmen massacre, more than 20,000 mainland students suddenly came out of woodwork. Many of them had entered the country under the pretext of short-term language study and had already overstayed their visas.

As a result, Australia has greatly cut back on issuing student visas and now divides students into high- and low-risk groups according to nationality. All the countries in Asia, except for Japan, are listed as high risk.

The screening of applicants from high-risk countries is more strict and time consuming, and their chances of being turned down are much higher. Applicants who haven't been admitted to an accredited college or university and are only applying for short-term language study must go through another channel of procedures and pay NT$4,000 more. Starting last January, the Australian government has also required that applicants for short-term language programs pay their tuition in full before they can get a visa.

Some private language schools in Australia that have funded surveys as part of their own operations have found that Taiwan students are almost all well off financially and shouldn't be considered high risk in terms of working over the limit or overstaying their visas. They hope to persuade their government to relax its restrictions on applicants from Taiwan, but the "crackdown" so far is still in effect.

With the large influx of students for language programs, business has suddenly boomed for private language schools, regardless of quality. Some schools have tried to pull in business with dishonest advertising, claiming, for instance, that student visas can be exchanged for residency permits, inflating the scale of their operations, or promising to meet students at the airport and arrange food and lodging for them, without mentioning that they will be charged for it--the bills start flying in after they get there.

Last July, a number of mainland Chinese students who believed they had been duped by the schools rose up in protest and demanded the return of their tuition, causing such a fuss that mainland officials appeared and interceded with the Australian government. Students from Taiwan haven't been involved in protests like that, but you still hear a lot of stories about their being cheated.

Only in the past two years, as the Australian government has commissioned the opening of overseas student agencies in countries with large numbers of applicants and as universities such as Sydney, Melbourne and New South Wales have set up language programs of their own, have students gradually managed to avoid the pitfalls of disreputable schools.

Besides those in short-term language classes, students from Taiwan receiving higher education in Australia generally fall into three categories. One consists of the "shock troops" of families planning to immigrate there. They may have received only a high school, vocational school or two-year college education in Taiwan, and they usually choose to study at a technical school. Australia has a vast array of technical schools of all types, from general studies to business and computers, with programs of one to four years. Eighty percent of the country's high school graduates go on to enroll at a technical school.

The rest enter colleges and universities. There are 21 universities in the country, and more than 40 smaller institutions. Both types now have students from Taiwan.

The universities all are state owned, which leads some people to say that one of the strengths of the Australian system is that degrees can't be bought. In imitation of the United States, the country allowed the opening of a private university a while back, but it foundered financially less than three years later, and most of its stock has been bought up by the Japanese.

Among its six states, most of Australia's universities are concentrated in Queensland and New South Wales, in the northeast, and in Victoria, in the south, where the population is largest. Australian universities carry on the British tradition, with each school relatively equal in standards. It would be impossible to rank them in terms of prestige, but the longstanding universities of Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra and New South Wales are generally recognized as the most outstanding, and Melbourne and Sydney have produced several Nobel Prize winners.

Although Australian universities are not, generally speaking, on a par academically with those in Europe and North America, they are still pacesetters for those in Asia and the southern hemisphere. Especially after the end of the Second World War, which left the country, like the U.S., relatively unscathed, its strong economy, which ranked among the world's top, and its abundant capital at the time laid a good foundation for the development of its universities and academic research. Many students from countries in Asia that were also British colonies before the war, such as Singapore and Malaysia, aim to study at Australia's noted universities.

With an educational credit system inherited from Europe, Australian universities used to recognize degrees from Taiwan from only a few public universities as qualifying their holders for direct admission to graduate school, but they have gradually relaxed their standards. Only a few, such as Sydney and Melbourne, are more strict and may require an oral interview or a trial year in the undergraduate program before deciding on admission.

Australian universities still require applicants to furnish their TOEFL scores, although Alan Yuan, administrator of the universities' Taiwan office, says that since TOEFL doesn't include an oral test, the schools may decide to switch to the International English Language Testing Service, which includes an oral test along with composition.

The English used in Australia belongs to the British system, so there are some differences with the American variety more familiar on Taiwan. The first area in which Chinese planning to study in Australia must fully prepare themselves is probably that old bugbear, the language problem.

As for tuition, it's about the same as in the U.S. After the Labor party came to power ten years ago, university education was made tuition free and scholarships were abolished, but since the reason for opening the universities to foreigners is to attract foreign exchange, overseas students naturally have to pay their way. Scholarships are granted only in the most extraordinary circumstances. The government last year provided six, with five of them going to students already there.

Undergraduate programs usually last three years, with a few exceptions, such as four for engineering, five for architecture and six for medicine. There are no limits on graduate study.

Australians generally believe that students are more strongly motivated and focused in direction if they gain some work experience before coming back for graduate school instead of studying straight through to a master's degree. Most graduate students work part time and study slowly. When Wu Hsin-hsing, director of the financial and economic news section at the Commercial Times, earned a doctorate in political science from the University of Melbourne in three and a half years, the students and faculty considered it "an innovation."

For our budding young scholars, Australia is still very much unknown territory. Before the restrictions on issuing student visas were relaxed, there were few of them there and they were scattered among various schools, so there was no way for them to form alumni clubs or accumulate experience to pass on to others.

Just four or five years ago, many students often believed that they were the only ones in their schools from Taiwan. With no friends from home, heavy course loads and no means of unwinding, they often ran into problems. Tzeng Wen-hsien, who is studying environ mental engineering at the University of Melbourne, ruined his stomach just that way. Medical student Huang Li-an ran into another Asian in the library once and asked, "Are you from Vietnam? Or Malaysia?" When they found out they were both Chinese, they ran off to celebrate.

The situation has been improving recently, especially in places like Sydney and Melbourne, where immigrants from Taiwan have congregated and their children are starting to go to college. Alumni clubs with more than 20 members have been set up in both cities.

Be that as it may, Wu Hsin-hsing, who has also studied in the United States, believes when you go off to another country to study, there are always some things you can't ask others for help with and certain experiences you have to go through yourself. It's just that, under present circumstances, studying in Australia takes a bit more psychological preparation.

[Picture Caption]

Thinking of studying in Australia? You'd better know something about the system and spirit of education there first.

(Right) The life of an overseas student would seem to be quite pleasant. The hardships of living away from home can only be surmised rather than conveyed in words.

Prospering countries in Asia are the main source of Australia's foreign students.

The number of students in Australia from Taiwan has increased even more with the addition of the sons and daughters of recent immigrants. This is a meeting of a club for students from Taiwan at the University of Melbourne.

Although they may not always be on a par academically with those in Europe and North America, Australia's universities are still citadels of learning for the southern hemisphere.

The quest for knowledge in Australia takes a lot of drive and initiative.

（Right） The life of an overseas student would seem to be quite pleasant. The hardships of living away from home can only be surmised rather than conveyed in words.

Prospering countries in Asia are the main source of Australia's foreign students.

The number of students in Australia from Taiwan has increased even more with the addition of the sons and daughters of recent immigrants. This is a meeting of a club for students from Taiwan at the University of Melbourne.

Although they may not always be on a par academically with those in Europe and North America, Australia's universities are still citadels of learning for the southern hemisphere.

The quest for knowledge in Australia takes a lot of drive and initiative.