An Australian university is offering ambitious Thai students tougher graduate subjects

It may be more difficult in the future for high-school students to book an undergraduate place at Australia's University of Melbourne. But for graduate students who already hold a bachelor's degree, the opportunities for study at the university are wider than before.

This is because of a major education plan called "The Melbourne Model", under which the University of Melbourne is reducing both its number of undergraduate students and the degrees it offers, concentrating instead on graduate-level courses for professional degrees like law, medicine, architecture and education.

The university's deputy vice chancellor, Professor Frank Larkins, explains that today's graduate subjects are more complex, and there's a trend among foreign students for taking further - rather than undergraduate - education abroad.

For example, the university's staff believes that students find complex medicine courses more rewarding when undertaken at graduate level, before they specialise in their medical training.

"Students of a more mature age learn more about the complexity of these disciplines if they already have a more general undergraduate education," he says. "We have also found that [overseas] students are seeking international qualifications more at a graduate level than in undergraduate studies."

At present, the University of Melbourne has about 44,000 students. One-third of them are graduate students, and the remaining 30,000 are undergraduates.

By 2010 or 2011, the university expects at least 50 per cent of its students to be studying at graduate level.

"These changes are designed to strengthen the quality of the educational experience for students. They will also help to prepare them to take leadership roles in an increasingly challenging world."

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Follow the road to Oz

>> About one quarter, or 11,000, of the students currently attending the University of Melbourne are from overseas countries.