The Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) typically cancels anywhere from eight thousand to nine thousand visas in a year, however, in the latest figures that the Department came out with for the year ending June of 2015, it shows that there is a spike of thirty per cent in the number of visas that have been cancelled. This, according to a report made by The Australian.
One thousand seven hundred ninety three Chinese students have had their visas cancelled, indicating that they are the highest risk group. Next on the list were South Koreans, with one thousand one hundred sixty, followed by students from India, Vietnam, and then Thailand.
However, the total number of student visas that were granted increased by two percent from two hundred ninety two thousand sixty (292,060) to two hundred ninety nine thousand five hundred forty.
Education providers that are considered to be low in quality, education agents that are seen as unscrupulous, as well as the overly complicated current student visa framework have all been blamed for these huge numbers of cancelled visas.
Just last month there were 2 colleges, St Stephen Institute of Technology, and Symbiosis Institute of Technical Education, were both shut down after accusations have been made that they were ”being used to source student visas for Indian students who then go to work,” and that they are not providing education at all.
Provided the huge scrutiny by the immigration department, a number of larger providers of education, including Navitas, a sector heavyweight, have cancelled contracts with some 3rd party agencies that are sourcing international students.
Mr Christopher Pyne, the Minister of Education, has also made the move to push out these unscrupulous education agents, making an announcement of a code of ethics and a feasibility study into a quality framework for agents that are industry-led.
”The quality of the educational services that Australia offers to the rest of the world is an asset that we should protect and enhance,” Mr Pyne stated, also adding that, ”International education is Australia’s 4th largest export industry overall and our largest services export ahead of tourism, so maintaining our strong reputation for quality is important.”
According to the Australian government, a single framework for the student visa risk assessment is going to be introduced by the middle of next year. It is expected that this new system will effectively have 1 student visa class, and will also have a different subclass for the guardians of the students.
Source: MigrationAlliance.com.au
