Education bigger than tourism

EDUCATION has replaced tourism as Australia's top services export.The Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates that education exports last year were worth $12.5 billion compared with the $11.5 billion tourism industry.Its data ranked education as the third most lucrative export industry behind coal ($20.8 billion) and iron ore ($16 billion).The ABS figures were calculated by assessing the dollars spent in Australia by foreign students, which last year numbered more than 450,000, 18% more than in 2006. Almost half of the students were staying in universities, while the fastest areas of growth were in the vocational training and English language sector. The top five countries for students were China, India, South Korea, Malaysia and Hong Kong.