Australian universities to clamp down on student visa abusers

August 19 2009 by Mark Johnstone

Move to Australia to study

Australian universities are looking to clamp down on foreign students who move to Australia in the name of study, purely to gain permanent residency.

These students apply for their Australian student visa to undertake a short, vocational course that undermines the reputation of other students who want to gain a valuable education.

Industry body, Universities Australia (UA), is calling for immigration criteria for the granting of student visas to be focused on educational quality and advanced skills. It argues that this refocus on delivering quality education will also benefit the country and offset the effects of “opportunistic education enrolments in some tertiary areas,” as UA’s Dr Glenn Withers puts it.

Unregistered education agents have long been a source of problems for Australian Universities and a voluntary code of conduct has done little to help. Maurene Horder of the Migration Institution of Australia says the country should adopt a policy like the one used in Canada. There, unregistered agents are not able to lodge student visa applications for a third party.

UA is also calling for the minimum amount of funds required to study in Australia as a foreign student to be increased beyond the current AU$12,000 a year. This would stop foreign students having to work long hours while they should be studying, undermining their efforts.

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