Chinese students flock to Australia to plug gap in China’s wine industry
Chinese students are heading to South Australia to study winemaking to plug a talent winemaking shortage in China’s own wine industry.
News service The Lead South Australia reports the University of Adelaide has seen a three-fold increase in enrolments from Chinese students in the past five years on its winemaking courses.
The university offers a four-year Bachelor degree in Viticulture and Oenology, as well as a postgraduate Diploma and Masters courses. The institution has 280 students across the three courses, 41% of which are Chinese. In 2016 there were 114 students from China studying winemaking subjects at the University of Adelaide compared with just 44 in 2013, while numbers for 2017 are yet to be finalised due to the upcoming mid-year intake.
“That’s a significant change in five years,” said School of Agriculture, food and wine associate professor Paul Grbin.
“About 90% of our international students now are from China and that’s primarily in our post-graduate programmes, but we have a reasonable percentage in our undergraduate programmes too.”
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