Whereas Patricia O’Callaghan, CEO of Vacation spot Gold Coast, described the coastal metropolis as “Australia’s favorite playground”, Alfred Slogrove, CEO of Research Gold Coast labelled it “Australia’s favorite classroom” for worldwide college students.
The delegation not solely highlighted the “lovely life-style” and “fascinating dwelling situations” the Gold Coast has to supply, resembling Southern Cross College’s campus situated 400 metres from the seaside, but additionally delved into some specifics relating to post-study work rights for worldwide college students.
“A really important profit that the town of Gold Coast has over most different cities in Australia is in regard to post-study work rights,” stated Rob Borbidge, chairman of Research Gold Coast.
“We’re the primary regional research vacation spot and that implies that worldwide graduates take pleasure in as much as 4 years of post-study work rights – one thing that our capital cities can’t provide.”
“Don’t underestimate what which means for college kids specifically who need to expertise the Gold Coast not from an academic perspective but additionally studying how the tradition is when it comes to a piece final result,” stated Slogrove.
He expanded on the “distinctive benefits” which the town has due to its regional standing, together with precedence visa processing, an asset they’ve been in a position to negotiate with the Australian authorities on account of stated standing.
There are additionally appreciable choices for college kids trying to discover work alongside their research. Research Gold Coast’s pupil jobs platform has been efficiently matching employers with college students since 2020.
In response to Slogrove, there are at the moment 1,300 employers on the platform, providing over 1,600 jobs within the sport, movie, schooling, tourism and well being sectors.
The delegation emphasised distinctive pupil help and care the town provided to worldwide college students all through the pandemic.
With worldwide pupil numbers now approaching pre-pandemic ranges within the area, Borbidge believes that this “demonstrates that when it comes to our neighborhood, we’re very a lot a caring neighborhood that appears after our guests, wether they could be college students or vacationers”.
The delegation’s journey coincided with the 2022 Commonwealth Video games, held in Birmingham. The group might be attending the Video games, which the town in Queensland hosted in 2018, earlier than travelling to Barcelona to proceed the mayoral mission.