Sunworshippers run into the sea early on New Years Day on Bondi Beach, Sydney, New South Wales. Photograph: Ian Wildie/Getty Images
For years Australian unis have been successfully recruiting students with the promise of beaches, beer and barbies - with a degree on the side to go with your suntan. Rather too successfully, complain the Group of Eight who represent the country's most prestigious higher educational establishments.
The group's executive director Michael Gallagher has warned the "Brand Australia" strategy is beginning to backfire with universities in the US, Canada and Scandinavia discouraging their students from a "sun, surf and sex" experience Down Under, reports the UK higher education international unit.
Speaking at the University of Sydney, Gallagher said Australia's
international education marketing delivered "messages other than valuing intellectual achievement" - basically beer and beaches. Tourism and immigration had "intruded into the branding message" and Group of Eight universities would rather emphasise international research excellence.
Ah, those sunkissed laboratories with peer-reviewed citation indices as far as the eye can see? We haven't bought you a beer or saved you a place on the beach. The library's open - so where the bloody hell are you?
