Aspiring international students have lodged a record number of visas applications in June, in what is a boost to universities and education providers looking for a post-COVID growth in business.

A Home Affairs Department update shows around 42,700 student visa applications were lodged in June, in an apparent post-COVID rush to return to Australia.

In a statement, Home Affairs said: “This is the largest number of offshore applications received in a single month in the last 10 years”.

The department said that the high numbers seen in June are continuing, with an average of 10,000 student visa applications a week being received during July from offshore applicants. In comparison, only 34,015 student visa applications were received in June 2019, before the pandemic.

Phil Honeywood, CEO of the International Education Association of Australia said the figures showed that demand was recovering “notwithstanding the reputational damage” which Australia had suffered as an education destination during the pandemic.

“This latest data proves there is still a strong appetite to study in Australia,” Mr Honeywood said.

The record number of applications will put even more pressure on the Department of Home Affairs which has struggled to process the volume of student visa applications since borders opened at the end of last year.

In an effort to speed up processing the department has assigned 140 more people to visa processing in its overseas offices since May.

Last week Immigration Minister Andrew Giles said 62,000 student visas had been finalised since the beginning of June but warned that the situation would not change quickly.

“The processing of visas will continue to be a major priority for this government, but reducing the backlog of applications can’t happen overnight,” Mr Giles said.

“People reallocated to dealing with the visa applications on hand need to be trained and skilled before they can go about this important work.”

At the moment, the international education industry is still catching up with the boom conditions it experienced pre-COVID. The value of Australia’s education exports hit a peak of $40.3 billion in 2019.

The latest Home Affairs data also shows that 171,000 international students had commenced courses in the five months to May this year, 31 per cent less than in the same period of 2019.

“Lessons learnt from the pandemic show that we need to build back better. Going forward, the key concerns include visa processing times, motivation of student applicants and diversity of source countries,” Mr Honeywood said.

Currently international students have no limit on the hours they work since the Morrison government removed the previous 40 hours per fortnight restriction in an effort to ease labour shortages.

But this has sparked concerns that international students will be attracted to Australia by the prospect of working to earn money rather than coming to study.