Many students in Sri Lanka still tend to select traditional courses at tertiary level even if they get an opportunity to study overseas. The choice of courses of majority students are the more commonly known specialties, marketing, business, accounts and even engineering and IT. This is mainly because students are exposed only to those available in tertiary educational institutions in the island, be it in the state or the private sector. Most private sector educational institutions offer courses in these traditional areas of studies through foreign universities because they are cheaper. On the other hand students have no way to get information on the job openings and career opportunities with such non traditional courses.

When a student gets an opportunity to study in a country like Australia it is necessary that they look beyond the courses generally known to Sri Lankan students and focus on courses such as ;

• Engineering - specializing in Chemical/ Materials/ Geotechnical/ Structural/ Transport/ Industrial/ Mining/ Petroleum/ Aeronautical/ Agricultural/ Environmental and Telecom Networks
• Accountancy - specializing in Taxation & Actuary
• Property & building industry related areas of studies such as - Architecture/ Land Economics/ Valuation of properties/ Landscape architecture/ Spatial Science Surveying/ Urban & Regional Planning and Quantity Surveying
• Agriculture ,Science
• Chemists
• Medical related areas of studies such as - Medical Laboratory Science/ Physicist (Medical)/ Medical Radiography - Diagnostic & Therapy/ Nuclear Medicine/ Sonography/ Environmental & Occupational health/ Pharmacy/
  Occupational Therapy/ Physiotherapy/ Podiatry/ Audiology/ Speech Pathology
• Nursing - (general, aged care, childcare,/ community health,/ critical & emergency care, development disability, disability & rehab, medical, mental, perioperative & surgical)/ psychology - (clinical, educational or organizational)/ psychotherapy - (trauma & family counselling)
• Teaching (early childhood/ secondary & special needs)
• Computing - ICT business analyst/ systems analyst/ analyst programmer/ developer programmer/ software engineer
• Law - to be a Barrister or a Solicitor
• Social work

The undergraduate and postgraduate degree courses in these fields of studies not only offer students excellent career opportunities but also the ability to join workforces internationally, including Australia.
The counsellors at Edlocate are very thorough with the courses that lead to such skills and will provide information to students on their future after the successful completion of the course. Edlocate now represents 16 universities in Australia - 7 of them in the top 8. We have universities in 5 states and the ACT, for students to choose from. We also represent university accredited pathway programmes for undergraduate degrees.

Any student who desires to do tertiary studies has numerous choices to choose from - the course, state to study, university, pathway and all this guidance is provided free of charge by well experienced and qualified counsellors. Being a streamlined agency appointed by the Australian High Commission, the complex visa procedure is handled by Edlocate with expertise and least hassle and in a timely manner, for genuine students. For those students who are financially unable to meet costs of studying in Australia, Edlocate could find placements in UK, Malaysia, China and India in 2012.

It is desirable that students and parents visit Edlocate early and get preliminary details rather than wait for the rush to commence when A/L results are released. Early consultation would allow plenty of time to attend to formalities for the February 2012 intake in Australia.