Amazing Ambassador Campaign

The Hon. J.M. GAZZOLA (14:42): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Employment, Higher Education and Skills, a question about the Qingdao Amazing Ambassador campaign.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.M. GAZZOLA: I understand that during a visit to China in October last year, the minister launched this campaign that aimed to raise awareness of Adelaide as a study destination. Minister, will you provide the chamber with an update on how the campaign is progressing?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for Employment, Higher Education and Skills, Minister for Science and Information Economy, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for Business Services and Consumers) (14:43): I thank the honourable member for his important question. Indeed, I was very pleased to be able to officially launch the Amazing Ambassador, Unforgettable Experience—Adelaide—and apparently that title translates very well in Chinese, but it is a bit of a mouthful in English, I have to say—Australia and Qingdao Sister City Student Ambassador Recruitment Campaign during my visit to China in October last year.

China is South Australia's premier market for international students. For the full calendar year 2014, there were over 11,700 Chinese students enrolled in South Australia, which is approximately 38 per cent of South Australia's international students. The Amazing Ambassador campaign was an outcome of the South Australia Shandong high level working group's education subcommittee, along with StudyAdelaide. It aims to raise awareness of the sister city and the relationship between Qingdao and Adelaide and to grow our share of international student markets from Shandong students.

The campaign was built around a competition to recruit a student to become the Qingdao student ambassador. It consisted of online promotion through social media forums, other get-together forums and websites, as well as offline promotion including flyer distribution to various campuses in Qingdao. I can advise the chamber that the outcomes from the four-week campaign included more than 169 million reaches through social media, which is just astounding, a database of 3,700 potential students generated, over 1,700 individuals expressing an interest in studying in Adelaide and 167 referrals by education agents. At the close of the competition on 16 November, more than 800 entries had been received.

I am now pleased to advise that, following an extensive selection process consisting of representatives from StudyAdelaide, the three public universities and TAFE, Ms Wang Dan, a student from Qingdao Agricultural University, has been named the winner of the campaign. StudyAdelaide has advised me that Ms Wang was selected for her outstanding social media profile and her community engagement activity, and she is the recipient of several awards.

She presents as a young woman full of passion and enthusiasm who participates in many university activities and organises several activities herself. She is seeking to improve her English and is very keen on learning a foreign culture. She also has an outstanding social media profile, as I said, and is keen to promote South Australia to China and to the rest of the world. It is even more pleasing that Ms Wang is planning to do her postgraduate study in Adelaide, a decision she made before knowing she was actually the winner of the campaign.

The winner receives a free study trip to Adelaide, including return flights, four weeks' student accommodation, English language courses, spending money and participation in student activities, events and tours of Kangaroo Island and the Adelaide Hills and such like. Each of the elements of the prize have been sponsored by partners of StudyAdelaide. I understand that Ms Wang is expected to visit Adelaide during the Chinese school holidays in July and August 2015, and I am sure all members in this chamber wish her well for her visit to South Australia.