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10/8/2009 Where do we need to plant Chinese churches? Where in Sydney do we need to plant Chinese churches? Which areas have lots of Chinese people - but are very thin on Chinese churches?In the past there was this map created with Google Maps, showing the 100+ Chinese churches in Sydney. That was made by Ernest Chiang (who is doing a church plant in Mortdale with CECA). And remember, that map used a very broad classification of Chinese churches. The different coloured pins, by the way, are meant to represent different areas. And we've also seen this map (to the right), which shows you the Chinese population density in different areas of Sydney. But wouldn't it be good if you could put the two together, to see where we need to plant? What I've done today is just that. I've overlaid them, with a bit of resizing and stretching and transparency... and that gets us the following map.  The usefulness of a map like this is probably immediately obvious for planning your future church plant. You can easily see areas of significant Chinese population density, yet with few Chinese churches (use the small hotmap above to identify significant areas). Here are some of those areas:
Be aware that some of the churches on this map are struggling, or are only focussing on one language or demographic, or have somewhat dodgy theology... And that some brand-new churches have been planted since Ernest made that map! [ PS: where would you plant a Chinese church? ] 10/6/2009 Chinese in Catholic (and other) schools in SydneyFrom graphs like this in previous posts, it's pretty clear that the primary school and high school age group is very significant for the future of ABC ministries. Well, what kind of educational institutions are ABCs in? How many of them are in Catholic (and other) schools? First off, here is a graph showing you where the Chinese and ABCs are in terms of educational institutions in Sydney. Note that the red bars (All students) maps to the scale on the right hand side. The green and blue bars (Chinese and ABCs) maps to the scale on the left hand side. I've put them on the same graph so you can see the relative proportions.  In case you want it, here is a table with that data.
From the stats on religion in a previous post, a number of people have asked about how many ABCs are actually in Catholic schools. This table tells you the answer: 2,075 are in Catholic primary schools, and 1,781 are in Catholic high schools. While the number of ABCs in Catholic schools is proportionally much less than the population as a whole, it's actually about right for the percentage of ABCs that are Catholics. You might have thought that there would be proportionally more ABCs going into Uni / tertiary education than the general population. So why does the blue bar look so low? That's because the age profile for ABCs is not flat - but heavily weighted towards primary and high schoolers (see this graph). It's not that there are less ABCs doing tertiary education - but there are much more school aged ABCs coming up through the education pipeline! Notice also the big green spike of Chinese people in Uni / Tertiary education - that's because of overseas students! Here is a map of Chinese kids (not necessarily ABCs) in Catholic infant and primary schools.  And here is a map of Chinese kids in Catholic secondary schools.  Here is a table with that information on Catholic primary and secondary schools. Note that these are kids of Chinese ancestry, not just ABCs.
[ PS: for more on Catholic ABCs see this post... ] 10/1/2009 Chinese transitoriness in Sydney (part 3): more on North and South In a previous post we raised the theory of Chinese people moving from the South of the city, to the North. What I've done here is divided up Sydney into North and South. In the graph below there is a list of Statistical Local Areas (SLAs) - and I have grouped the SLAs from 'Botany Bay' to 'Blacktown - South West' as being the South, and the SLAs from 'Hunter's Hill' to 'Wyong - South and West' as being the North. Admittedly this is not a perfect division (eg. this puts 'Penrith' and 'Blue Mountains' in the South), but it'll do as a rough guide. This bar graph then shows you the movements into each of these SLAs, divided up into whether they are coming from SLAs in the South (red) or the North (blue).  This is helpful in showing you whether the people moving into a certain SLA have mostly been from the South, or the North. But what is happening across Sydney as a whole? Is there a big movement from South to North, as they theory suggests? For this next graph I've tallied up all the movements of Chinese from the North and South, and whether they have gone to the North or South. This graph shows you the overall pattern of movements into and out of these two areas.  Here is a table summarising this movement data for the Chinese in Sydney.
What we see is that, on the whole, people from both North and South tend to stay in their area (10,325 Chinese who moved from the North stayed in the North, and 39,237 Chinese who moved from the South stayed in the South). In addition, the South saw more Chinese people moving about than the North (a total of 13,554 moving from the North, compared to a total of 46,012 moving from the South). However the picture is also skewed because the South also includes disproportionally more SLAs than the North. But what about across-the-harbour movements? When we look at people crossing over to different areas, there are less Chinese people moving from the North to the South (3,229) than there are Chinese people moving from the South to the North (6,775). In fact over this 2001-06 period there was a net movement of 3,546 Chinese people from the South to the North. So the theory is true - on the whole, Chinese people are moving from South to North. But this movement is not very large: 3,546 only represents about 7.7% of the total house movements in the South... [ PS: how many people in your church have moved across to the other side of Sydney over the past 5 years? how many have moved in? ] 9/29/2009 Life stage of Sydney ABCs - in bar graphs In a previous post I published a table of Australian Born Chinese (ABCs) in Sydney by life stage and area - as well as a series of maps. However maybe a better way to see that data is to have it in a stacked bar graph. Here it is:  I find this a better way to identify significant areas of ABC high schoolers (say), than with a hot map. I think it's also easier to see how your area stacks up against others in Sydney this way. This second graph here is that same data, but now in a 100% stacked bar graph. This is useful for showing you the relative proportions. Note that right at the bottom of this graph is also a 'Total' bar, that shows you the average across Sydney as a whole - use that to compare your area against the whole of Sydney.  This is not as useful as the previous graph - but in a few instances it can quickly alert you to the fact that your area has a disproportionate number of ABC young workers (eg. Sydney East) - or children (eg. the Parramatta area) - compared to other areas in Sydney. [ PS: notice how prominent the reds and greens are in both graphs - a sign of how many young children there are in the ABC category... ] 9/23/2009 Chinese transitoriness in Sydney (part 2): where are they moving? 1. Two theories on people movements in Sydney In the last post we looked at which areas have people who have moved house, and which are more stable areas (see previous post). But where are they moving from? and where are they going to? There are two theories that are going around. The first theory states that people tend to move outwards away from the city, along train lines. And so if they start off in Ashfield, they will move out further from the city, but along the same train line - perhaps to Parramatta. If they start off in West Ryde, they will move up further to Hornsby - and so on. The second theory states that people are moving from the South, across the harbour to the North as they become more established and more affluent. And so if they started off in Randwick, they might cross over to Artarmon. If they started off in Ashfield they might cross over to Ryde. Which - if any - of these theories are right? 2. Mapping movements among the Chinese in Sydney With the help of CDATA at the Australian Bureau of Statistics, we can see what's actually happening with the Chinese population of Sydney. I've created a table of movements across Sydney that is very large and can't reproduce here (but you can download it from here). From this I identified six areas that had significant numbers of people who changed their home address during the past five years. And then created maps of where those people went. These six areas are:
First, a map of where Chinese people are now, who lived in the Canterbury area 5 years ago. The majority have moved within Canterbury itself (1,669 people). Others have moved nearby to Hurstville (419 people) or North-East Bankstown (234 people).  This one is a map of where Chinese people are now, who lived in Fairfield East 5 years ago. Again, the majority have moved within Fairfield East (2,069 people). When they have moved out, they have tended to move nearby suburbs like Fairfield West (375 people) or Liverpool West (145 people).  This is a map of where Chinese people are now, who lived in the Randwick area 5 years ago. Again they have tended to move within Randwick (1,292 people) - or nearby suburbs like South Sydney (212 people), Botany Bay (172 people) and Rockdale (118 people).  This is a map of where Chinese people are now, who lived in the Hurstville area 5 years ago. Yet again they have tended to move within Hurstville (1,284 people), or moved a bit further south to Kogarah (425 people), and then to surrounding areas like Canterbury (186 people), Rockdale (161 people) and South Bankstown (67 people).  This is a map of where Chinese people are now, who lived in the Auburn area 5 years ago. The vast majority of them stayed in the Auburn area (1,098 people) - but a few generally towards suburbs to the West such as Strathfield (88 people), North-East Parramatta (82 people) and Burwood (70 people) - and also Ryde (93 people).  And finally here is a map of where Chinese people are now, who lived in the Ryde area 5 years ago. Yet again, they have tended to stay in the Ryde area (1,047 people). Others have moved to surrounding areas like Hornsby South or North-East Parramatta (both 253 people) - maybe also Ku-ring-gai (143 people). Notice also that they don't just remain North of the harbour: some will move to areas down South.  3. What's actually happening in Sydney The trend is pretty clear - Chinese people tend to stay within the same area, the vast majority moving to another address within the same Statistical Local Area (SLA). A good example here is Auburn, where 1,098 people moved to another area within Auburn. The next most popular destination after Auburn was less than one tenth that number (Ryde, 93 people). When the Chinese do move outside their SLA, they tend to move to nearby areas - often adjacent ones. A good example of this is Canterbury, where the numbers for Canterbury itself plus all the adjacent SLAs made up 2,495 people, or 55% of the total movements from Canterbury. There certainly aren't huge numbers making the jump across the harbour, leaving the "south to north" theory with little to stand on. The maps also show that Chinese people aren't moving in any one particular direction (ie. they aren't only moving South, from Canterbury). Instead they tend to be spreading out in all directions. This seems to knock the "out along train lines" theory on its head. This is actually good news for Chinese churches - which tend to be regional, rather than purely local churches. Yes, 31% of the people we come in contact with may move within five years (from the previous post) - but generally they will either move within the same area, or to surrounding areas. And so if they have transport, they may be able to keep coming to your church... [ PS: have people from your church moved recently? where have they moved? ] 9/22/2009 Chinese transitoriness in Sydney (part 1): who stays put, and who will move?Note: I made some errors in the initial post this morning (some categories were wrong). These have now been fixed up! This time we are looking at Sydney's Chinese population in terms of how transient is this population. Have they been living at the same address for the last five years? or have they moved since then? Because, all things being equal, this can have a big impact on the ministry you have to them... Here is a map of Sydney (from the 2006 ABS census) showing you where there are large areas of Chinese who have stayed at the same address for the previous 5 years. This shows you large stable Chinese population areas. 
And here is a map of Sydney showing you where there are large numbers of Chinese are who have moved at least once during the previous 5 years. This is the more transient Chinese population. 
Some of those area are just large areas of Chinese population in general - which is why they have both large numbers of people staying and moving. This next map shows you a comparison of stable vs. transient as a percentage. This shows you the percent of Chinese who have moved at least once during the past five years.  Surprisingly, quite a large proportion of Sydney's Chinese community are transient - over 31% had moved in the 5 years before the 2006 census! If what you have nearby is a fairly stable Chinese population, that can mean that in time you can build a fairly stable ministry of people who have been at your church for ten, twenty years. But if people tend to move, that may mean the ministry you create is a fairly fast-paced one that establishes and equips believers, for where they will later move onto (much like a university ministry). And you can find yourself quite frustrated if you're trying to build the first kind of ministry (stable), when the population around you is just not like that! If you're interested in the data for your area, here is the table:
[ PS: how stable is the Chinese population around your church's area? And what sort of population is your church geared to reach - transient or stable? ] 9/14/2009 Tutorial: how to make a hotmap of ABCs in your suburb Today I want to share with you how to go about getting useful stats on your area from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). Because while I can do city-wide stats and maps, there is much more useful and detailed stuff you can find out about the area around your church - but you will have to do it yourself! But here's how to do it. Understand ABS geography First of all, you need to understand that there is a heirarchy of geographical areas used by the ABS. Probably the more important ones for you to know about are the following:
CCDs are the smallest area you can zoom in to - and today we'll see how to get a map of down to the level of CCDs of Australian Born Chinese living in your suburb! Step one - get into CDATA
Step two - select CCDs in your area
Step three - select ABCs
Step 4 - create a map
This gives you a map of the ABCs in your area down to CCDs - great for doorknocking, leafletting the area, or planning your church plant! Some clarifications thanks to Pauline Hor! [ PS: great to see some of you guys at the SCCCA English SALT retreat on the weekend! ] 9/11/2009 ABCs in MelbourneDavid Huynh recently asked me to put together some maps and stats on the Chinese in Melbourne for the upcoming Connect conference - and here is one of them. He has a whole lot more. This is a map of the ABCs in Melbourne.  In the 2006 ABS, there were 174,289 people of Chinese ancestry in Melbourne, of which 36,910 were born in Australia - the ABCs! [ PS: heading off to SALT retreat in Katoomba in a few hours! ] 9/6/2009 Life stages part II - pie graphs of ABCs in your areaIn the last post there was a table with information about the numbers of ABCs in different life stages, for each Statistical Local Area (SLA). And we used that to make maps of Sydney showing which areas have more primary schoolers, etc. Awesomely useful for ministry.  But how does that compare to the rest of Sydney? What you can then do is compare that to this next graph, which shows you the proportion of those life stages for all ABCs in Sydney.  In comparison, here is the pie graph for Fairfield East, which has noticeably younger ABCs than the rest of Sydney.  And here is the graph for Hurstville, which again shows you a young group of ABCs, but more weighted towards the pre-school and primary school age brackets.  Unfortunately you'll have to develop your own pie graphs for your own area, but that's not too difficult. Just use the data from the previous post. But what this kind of graph can do is tell you how much of the ABC population your ministry is able to reach. If your ABC ministry only focusses on tertiary age and young workers, it could mean that you are actually missing over 75% of the ABC population of your area! And Sydney-wide, one of the surprising things is how large the ABC pre-school and primary school age groups are in most areas... [ PS: what kind of ministry does your church need to start up to reach the ABCs in your area? ] 9/3/2009 Life stages part I - maps of Sydney's ABCsToday I have maps of the ABCs in Sydney again - and admittedly, it's kind of similar to the last post. But this time what I've done is I've broken the data down into different life stages. Because realistically, no one starts out a ministry to reach 10-19 year olds! Instead we aim for "primary schoolers", or "high schoolers", or "uni age people" and we conduct their outreach and ministry along those lines. Well then, where then do these groups of ABCs live? This first map shows you where 0-5 year old ABCs live. These are babies, toddlers, and pre-schoolers.  This second one is where 6-11 year old ABCs live. These kids are in primary school.  This next group are the 12-17 year old ABCs. These guys are your high schoolers. Be aware that sometimes high schoolers do travel outside their area to go to school. 
This next one is where 18-21 year old ABCs live. You can think of this group as tertiary age - Uni or TAFE. Although of course not everyone will go on into tertiary education after school. 
This one is where 22-29 year old ABCs live. You can think of this group as young workers. 
This is where 30-39 year old ABCs live (it's the same map as the last post). This is getting a bit tricky becuase not everyone will marry or have kids - but by and large these are young marrieds and young families (apologies if I offend anyone!!!).  And finally we have the 40+ year old ABCs again (the same map as from last time). Some people might consider these the oldies, even though they're not necessarily very old compared to the population as a whole.  From these maps you can see that areas that are prominent for primary schoolers (eg. Hurstville, Canterbury, Fairfield East) are not necessarily the same areas that would be prominent for marrieds (eg. Ryde, Randwick). Don't expect that your ABC ministry should look like another one on the other side of the city - that's simply not realistic! Instead, the kinds of ministries you want to develop to reach your ABC community is likely to be different from area to area. If you're interested in the actual figures underlying these maps, here is a table with this data. Again, I've highlighted the most significant areas for each stage of life.
[ PS: what life stages are your ABC ministry targetting? what are the ABCs like in the area near your church? ] 9/1/2009 Maps of Sydney's ABCs - by age groups! In a previous post I showed you where all the Australian Born Chinese (ABCs) live in Sydney - and hopefully that's been useful for planning your ministry. What I have for you today is a series of maps that break that group of ABCs down into age brackets - so you can see where 0-9 year old ABCs live, where 10-19 year old ABCs live, and so on. Because different areas of Sydney will have different kinds of ABCs living there... First off a map showing you where 0-9 year old ABCs live.  Second a map showing you where 10-19 year old ABCs live.  Then where 20-29 year old ABCs live...  And where 30-39 year old ABCs live. And finally I've grouped all the 40+ year old ABCs together (because there aren't so many of them). Here is where you can find them. These maps show you how distinctive the different areas of Sydney are in terms of their ABC population. Some areas (such as the South and South-West) have very dense populations of younger ABCs. And other areas (such as the North and the East) have strong concentrations of ABCs in their 30's. Interesting also is how certain areas can be very strong in a number of different age brackets. Fairfield East, for instance, is in the very topmost category for the 0-9 year, 10-19 year, and the 20-29 year age bracket. This is a significant area for doing ABC ministry! In case you want to look at the actual data underlying these maps, here is a table with all that data. I've highlighted in bold the topmost categories in each of the age brackets.
Remember that this data is from the 2006 ABS census. Which means that we are now three years on - and so an eight year old kid at the 2006 census will now actually be in the next age bracket. However this is probably good enough to give you a sense of where things are happening! [ PS: does your ABC ministry reflect the mix of ABCs in the surrounding area? ] 8/28/2009 Profile of Catholic Australian Born Chinese1. Age profile of ABC Catholics vs. ABCs as a whole From a previous post we saw that 44% (or 23,700) of ABCs identified by the ABS as 'Christian' are, in fact, Roman Catholics. That's a huge figure - and today we're going to look a bit closer at that section of our mission field. First off we have a graph showing the age profile of ABCs as a whole (black), compared to the age profile of Catholic ABCs (red). They map to different scales to the left and the right of the graph.  This graph helps us to compare the shape of the two graphs - and from it you can see that Catholic ABCs tend to lack kids in the 0-9 years age bracket in comparison to ABCs as a whole, but slightly lead the ABC graph in the 15-49 age range. 
Note that this is all ABCs - including those that are Buddhists, 'Other religions', and the very significant 'No religion'. That's why the red line looks so low here. 2. Age profile of ABC Catholics vs. 'Christian' ABCs In these next two graphs I've compared ABC Catholics to the whole 'Christian' group of ABCs. This first one gives you a comparison of the two graph shapes, showing that ABC Catholics tend to be slightly older than the 'Christian' ABC group as a whole.  And here I've plotted that graph on the same scale.  You can see that the red line is much more significant here - it represents 44% of the area under the black line! Although again you can actually see it tends to be stronger in the middle of the age range, and weaker in the younger age ranges. 3. The background of ABC Catholics What is the background of these Catholic ABCs? The remaining two graphs are of Overseas Born Chinese (OBCs), not Australian Born Chinese (ABCs). However going on the assumption that many people retain the religion of their parents, from this we can see what kind of background these ABC Catholics are likely to have. So here is a graph showing the region of birth of OBC Catholics. Note that it's a logarithmic graph because some of the figures were very large in comparison to others (eg. Maritime South-East Asia compared to Central and Western Africa).  You can see that the significant regions of birth for OBC Catholics are: Maritime South-East Asia (25,228), Chinese Asia (17,780), Mainland South-East Asia (2,586), Melanesia (1,629), Southern and East Africa (1,492) and 'Not stated' (1,383). In this last graph I've zoomed into those more significant regions for OBC Catholics and broken them down into countries. This one is a linear graph.  From this you can see the kind of countries that OBC Catholics have predominantly come from - which then suggests the background for their ABC kids. And the stand-out countries are: Hong Kong (9,436), Indonesia (8,354), Malaysia (7,911), and China (7,152). This is followed by Singapore (3,887), the Philippines (2,822), East Timor (1,994), Vietnam (1,922), PNG (1,439) and Mauritius (1,081). [ PS: know many Chinese Catholics? what countries did their family come from? ] 8/26/2009 Map of where recent Chinese migrants live in SydneyIf you want to reach out to recent Chinese migrants, where would you do it? Here is a map, constructed using 2006 ABS census data, that shows where Chinese who migrated to Australia during the first half of 2006 were living. The map highlights how prominent the Ryde and Randwick areas are in terms of recent Chinese migrants (ancestry = Chinese; year of migration = 2006).  Here is a table with the actual numbers of Chinese migrants. I have highlighted the areas with significant numbers of migrants. Note that the ABS census was conducted part-way through 2006, so it's a little dated, and doesn't represent figures for the whole of 2006. More recent data on migrants can be found at the Dept. of Immigration website (as recent as the past financial year) - but no pretty maps to look at!
[ PS: where is your church on the map? and how is it going at reaching out to recent Chinese migrants? ] 8/25/2009 How are we going at reaching the ABCs?Here are some more stats, generated by the CDATA section of the ABS website. We're looking at the Australian Born Chinese (ABCs), and this time we'll see how they define themselves in terms of religions. This'll give us an insight into how we're going at reaching the ABCs - and what challenges lie ahead! Before we get to the ABCs, this first pie graph shows you the religion of all people of Chinese ancestry, whether born here or overseas. You can see that 29.8% of all Chinese identify themselves as some kind of Christian.  This next pie graph however, is just ABCs - those people of Chinese ancestry, but who were born here in Australia. And of these ABCs, 37.5% identify themselves as some kind of Christian. But exactly what kind of Christian are we talking about here?  In this next pie graph we zoom in on those 53,907 ABCs who identified themselves as being a Christian of some sort. And from this you can see what kind of Christian denomination they identified with.  The following table gives you the actual number of ABCs in each of these sub categories. Note that these figures are for the whole of Australia.
Not surprisingly, the largest unreached segment of the ABC demographic are the 'No religion' section. Most of our outreach and apologetics will need to be developed with that in mind. But what surprised me most about these figures was how many ABCs describe themselves as being Catholics - 23,700 ABCs, or 44% of the 'Christian' category - and is still to be reached with the gospel! [ PS: any other reflections on this data? ] 8/23/2009 Maps of the Chinese in Brisbane Here I am in sunny Brisbane for BLT+! And to celebrate that small fact, here are some maps that might be useful for those doing ministry amongst the Chinese in Brisbane. First off, a map of where people of Chinese ancestry are in Brisbane. There are 47,842 people of Chinese ancestry up here!  Next is a map of where the ABCs are in Brisbane. Out of all the people up here of Chinese ancestry, there are 10,260 who were actually born in Australia.  And finally, here is a map of where recent Chinese migrants are living in Brisbane. In the year leading up to the 2006 ABS census, there were 1,555 Chinese people who migrated to Brisbane.  And how are things going by way of reaching out to the Chinese in Brisbane? Here is a pie graph showing you that 32.9% of the Chinese in Brisbane identify themselves as some kind of Christian...  [ PS: had a great time at BLT+ this year! ] 8/21/2009 Map of where ABCs live in Sydney Here is a map of where Australian Born Chinese (ABCs) live in Sydney, generated from the CDATA section of the ABS website.  And here are the actual numbers for you, in a table. I've highlighted the areas with particularly high numbers of ABCs.
This map shows you the areas where we definitely need Chinese churches to be establishing second-generation ministries! And from this you can already see what a huge need there is, particularly in the South-West of Sydney... [ PS: where is your church on the map? ] 8/19/2009 Age profile of the Australian Born Chinese The ABS has made available some amazing technology - which means that I can now create graphs from disparate bits of data (called CDATA). Kind of boring for you... but very, very exciting for me. And here's the cash value: from this we can find out things like how many ABCs there actually are in Australia, by correlating (a) ancestry = Chinese, and (b) place of birth = Australia. In Australia there are 630,598 people who identified themselves as having Chinese ancestry. And of these, 143,678 were born in Australia - the Australian Born Chinese. We can also get an age breakup for this group, and so here in this first graph, we have the age profile of these 143,678 ABCs in Australia as a whole. 
This next graph shows you the breakup of these ABCs for the different states and territories. 
For comparison, here is the age profile of all people of Chinese ancestry - the big spike in the 20-24 age bracket being a result of overseas Chinese students!  As the ABCs move from their student years into the workforce, they will increasingly become a vocal and important segment of any Chinese church. How is your church going at paving the way for that new stage of your church's life? [ PS: more graphs coming soon... ] 8/12/2009 Pathways for overseas Chinese students in Australia The AEI divides the education sector into different areas: higher education, vocational training (VET), intensive English language study (ELICOS), schools, and 'other'. And in 2008 the AEI published this study of the 'pathways' overseas students took through their studies in Australia - because not everyone just comes here to just do one kind of course... The study looked at students who began their studies in Australia in 2005, and tracked what they then did in subsequent years - whether they moved on to other sectors in subsequent years, or just stayed in the one sector (that's why it was only published in 2008) - their 'pathways'. And what I've done here is pulled the data about Chinese students out of the study, and made pie graphs out of them. First off, a pie graph showing you the proportion of single-sector, and multi-sector pathways for students from China.  What is immediately obvious is that Chinese students who began their studies in 2005 didn't just stay in one sector: the majority of them (71.3%) actually take on a multi-sector pathway during their time here in Australia. Next is a pie graph showing you a breakdown of those Chinese students commencing studies in 2005 who only took single-sector pathways.  Not surprisingly, the majority of those were in higher education (3283 students) - and presumably doing a course of study that will see them studying in Australia for several years. This third pie graph shows you the breakdown of the multi-sector pathways taken by Chinese students.  Obviously, ELICOS courses are seen as an important foundation for further study, with many adding it to school or, more popularly, a higher education course. But from this you can also start to get a sense of how significant the Higher education sector factors in multiple pathways. This is significant in that it reveals how long students from China stay in Australia for their education. Over 53% of students will be here for at least three or more years - these are the ones doing Higher education courses, or a mixture of other courses plus Higher education (thereby extending their stay even longer). In fact the majority will actually be staying for a longer time than it takes to do a standard undergraduate degree, with only 19.2% of Chinese students doing Higher education alone, compared to 28.0% doing ELICOS-Higher education. [ PS: how intentional is your ministry at reaching and discipling Chinese students in the few years they are with us? ] 8/1/2009 Foreign students in Australia 2009 Okay, got some more graphs for you today on overseas students, from data released last month by Australian Education International (AEI, get the actual figures here). This first bar graph shows you the numbers of students from six Asian countries (these six countries have been targeted by AEI as part of the "Study In Australia 2010" campaign).  China is obviously still leading the way in sending the largest number of students to Australia with 43,218 students enrolled in May 2009 (followed by India with 32,157 students). However not all of them are uni students! And so this next bar graph shows you the breakdown of which education sector these 43,218 Chinese students are in.  The vast majority of them are in higher education (17,080 students). This year there are over 4,000 extraChinese students coming to study in higher education on top of the figures for last year! However while a lot of Chinese students commenced in higher education - this is masked by another sizeable group (11,162 students) who are studying an ELICOS course (English Language Intensive Courses for Overseas Students), usually in preparation for further study. For those interested in India, you can get a similar breakdown for Indian students at my Photobucket here (and the profile is signifiancty different, with many more VET students).
Finally this third bar graph shows you the growth from 2008 to 2009 for five of those SIA countries, by sector. I have left India off this time, because including it distorts the graph somewhat. However if you really want to, you can see the complete graph (including India) on my Photobucket here.  So no major surprises for us this time around - just the same picture of even more Chinese students coming to Australia to study! But while all this growth is going on, how are we actually going at reaching them? what is your ministry doing about these overseas students? [ PS: coming up, the pathways that overseas Chinese students take... ] 7/20/2009 Migration in 2007-08 - and Indian ministry Here is a graph showing the top ten countries that people migrated from in 2007-08 (apart from New Zealand, which is treated separately by Immigration). And as you'd expect, Chinese migration is big - but did you know that there is another non-English speaking country that has even higher level of migration?  In its annual report on migration, the Australian Department of Immigration made the following observation: The proportion of applicants from India increased in the 2007-08 program year. India has overtaken the People’s Republic of China as the second largest source country, with 14.0 per cent and 13.0 per cent of total outcome respectively. In terms of regions, the Indian subcontinent now provides 19.9 per cent of the Migration Program (an increase from 18.6 per cent in 2006-07). The report also contained the following graph, showing the rise in migration from the Indian sub-continent since the late 1990's.  And in terms of the graphs I've been posting up over the last few days, the estimated size of the Indian migrant community puts it in 5th place, after the PRC and Italy (in 3rd and 4th places respectively). Here is a table with stats on migrant communities from the South Asia region.
I write a lot about the need for Chinese ministry. Becuase even though there are about a hundred Chinese churches in Sydney, we still need more. There is also heaps of interest at the moment about Arabic ministry. But while there's a need for Chinese and Arabic ministry, there is actually a much greater need for Indian ministry! Are our current churches doing a teriffic job reaching out to Indians? Are there heaps of Indians in our churches? Scores of Indians going through ministry apprenticeships and Bible college? Unfortunately the answer is no on all these counts. Also particularly noticeable is that South Asian migrant communities come first, second and third out of all countries in terms of the proportion of males (Bangladesh, Pakistan and India respectively). While there is a big need for Chinese ministry, and a lot of interest in Arabic ministry, we are really behind the ball on Indian ministry! [ PS: how many South Asians live in your church's suburb? ] |
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