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Unfamiliar academic practices and the English language are not the only challenges facing students from other countries.

There is so much we take for granted that puzzles international students, and Deborah Pyatt and her team in the International Sponsored Student Unit put a big effort into resolving these problems for AusAID students.

A record number of AusAID students are enrolled at UWA this year: 100 students from developing countries are sponsored by the Australian Government through the Australia Awards for Development, most of them doing post-graduate study. A few years ago, the average number of AusAID students was 40.

A new program this year for commencing students is AusAID Connect, a pilot program being run jointly by the Office of Development and Alumni Relations and the International Sponsored Student Unit.

It has seen all 37 of the commencing students meet up with UWA alumni who are keen to offer them a taste of home life.

Penny Young, acting manager of Alumni Relations, said alumni volunteers were matched with the students either by a common field of study or an interest in a particular country.

"They met at a Friday afternoon function at the University Club, then it was up to the alumni, who included some staff members, to arrange for the students to come to their homes for dinner," Ms Young said.

"Some of the relationships will continue: it is up to both parties what they want and how it works," she said. Already the feedback has been positive with several alumni advising that the students would be coming to see them again and joining in family activities.

"We hope the program makes a positive difference in the lives of the students, adjusting to being far from home," Ms Young said.

The students' problems and challenges are as numerous as their nationalities. (The 37 commencing AusAID students this year come from 23 countries in Africa, Asia and the Pacific region.)

"For example, over the past few years we have found that some of them are unable to read maps," Ms Pyatt said. "They are used to simply standing on a hill to work out where they are or how to get somewhere. So instead of just giving them a map and showing them how to use it, we have taken them up to the top of the DNA tower in Kings Park and shown them the lay of the land, pointing out the city, the University and other key landmarks."

The students arrive five weeks before the start of semester, for intensive training in academic writing at the Centre for English Language Teaching. "As soon as they arrive, we ask them to look around for a few days, write down what puzzles them, what delights them and the similarities with and differences between Perth and their home," she said.

Five days later, they gather together, at a cultural transition workshop, with their questions. "One year we had an Iraqi student ask, fearfully, why we built our homes so close to the water. Weren't we afraid of tsunami and sharks? This led to a discussion about the beach and we confirmed that many of the students didn't know how to swim, so we offered to assist them with swimming lessons, so they could make the most of living near the coast."

A Vietnamese student once asked why our parks were empty. "This was in late January, and we had to explain that Australians tried to avoid the sun when it was really hot, which led to us talking about the need for sunscreen, hats and water for hot days. We also explained that the parks were free for anybody to use, and they could set up a badminton game or use a public barbecue, at no cost."

Queries from students this year included how to apply for a mobile phone plan, where to buy cornmeal, was it safe to drink the tap water and how should we relate to the Indigenous people we meet?

The students are given suggestions on how to cope with the transition to a new country and a new culture. They include knowing others who can help, looking after yourself, and leaving the past behind for the time being, to make it easier to concentrate on their studies and not be consumed by homesickness or worries about the situation back home.

AusAID students are award recipients under the Australia Awards for Development which include scholarships for long and short term courses and professional development opportunities. The Australia Awards for Development are designed to develop capacity and leadership skills so that individuals can contribute to development in their home country and to build people-to-people linkages at the individual, institutional and country levels.

Award recipients are required to return to their countries for at least two years after completion of their studies, to contribute their newly-acquired skills.

AusAID administers a range of programs under the Awards including the Australian Development Scholarships, Australian Leadership Awards Scholarships, Australian Leadership Awards Fellowships, the Prime Minister's Pacific Australia Awards and Australian Regional Development Scholarships.

At UWA the students' fields of study are targeted to address priority human resource and development needs of their countries.

Currently, we have students from Indonesia studying forensic science; Pacific Islanders studying climate change; a civil engineer from Bhutan looking at design for earthquakes; a lawyer from Indonesia, who was involved in the Bali Nine court case, working towards a Master of Laws; and the second doctor from The Gambia doing a course on infectious diseases.

About 17 per cent of AusAID students at UWA are working towards their PhDs across all Faculties. Another 71 per cent are studying at Masters level, and just four per cent are doing bachelors degrees. Just under half of the students are studying in the Science faculties.

African students are the biggest cohort of AusAID students this year.

"AusAID 's increased budget in Africa means that the proportion of African students has risen exponentially," Ms Pyatt said. Most of the African students are studying natural resources management, mining-related and other sciences.

Published in UWA News , 28 May 2012