Overseas student numbers bouncing back Chinese students are now 40 per cent of international enrolments in higher education. INTERNATIONAL student numbers are showing positive signs of a turnaround as changes to the visa system triggered by the Knight review take effect. Even though overall higher education numbers for the year to May were down 2.6 per cent on 2012, commencements were up by 3.5 per cent. And on an even more positive note, English-language enrolments were up by 14.5 per cent for the year and commencements up 13.1 per cent. As far as enrolments and commencements, May is not a critical month only 780 higher education enrolments in April and 940 in May compared to 48,400 in February and March. While ELICOS - known as the canary in the coalmine because of the sector's sensitivity to market trends and tendency to foreshadow higher education enrolments - is bouncing back, vocational education enrolments continue to dive. Vocational enrolments were down 11.7 per cent for the year and commencements down 4.9 per cent. While India is still the major market for vocational students (23.2 per cent), China continues to dominate higher education representing 40 per cent of all international enrolments. The second most important market for higher education, Malaysia, produced just 7.2 per cent of higher education enrolments. And if ELICOS does predict trends in higher education, then chances are South America is emerging as a major new market. Colombia was the second biggest source country after China for ELICOS commencements (8.2 per cent) followed by Brazil (7.8 per cent).