indian students protest violence, crappy education

Here's some more news out of Australia about growing protests by Indian students over unscrupulous private education providers and continued violence and discrimination towards the country's Indian student population: Australia foreign student abuse proves expensive.

Disgruntled Indian students have taken to the streets in protest, claiming they've been ripped off by Australia's education industry. Basically, they feel like the system is designed to lure students from abroad, milking them out of thousands in tuition fees but only offering a substandard education.

Australia is an educational powerhouse, attracting students from all over the world, with 70,000 Indian students alone. After coal and iron ore, it's the country's third most lucrative industry. So yes, this is big business, and sooner or later, people are going to notice when they're getting exploited.

There's also the serious problem of ongoing attacks and muggings on Indian students in Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide. Police confirm there have been 97 attacks since late May, although the figure could be much higher since many assaults go unreported.

In July, a man was sentenced to 15 years in prison for leading a racist gang murder on a Chinese university researcher, who they mistook to be of Indian descent. They apparently attacked him to steal his cell phone, because Indian students "had better phones."

And do you know what they call violence towards Indians in Australia? "Curry bashing." I'm not making this up. More here: Indians speak out on Australian attacks. And here: India calls off Australia events.

So is it a surprise that angry Indians speaking out? They're safety is at risk in a country that fails to give them the education they came for in the first place. Student interest from India is already showing signs of trailing off, and with the protests getting attention from other communities, other students from overseas might follow suit. With that much money at stake, you better believe authorities are freaking out. They better be.