With the announcement that the Department of Home Affairs is running a webinar on Supporting improved student recruitment in Sub-Saharan Africa, some may be wondering whether international education providers will bother attending at all, or whether Home Affairs has any real appreciation of the current visa environment providers are operating in.
The webinar comes at a time when many providers are increasingly unsure where they can recruit with confidence because of high visa refusal rates, processing uncertainty and growing concern about the financial and reputational risks associated with refusals. And with high refusal rates across more traditional markets, it is hard to imagine providers being willing to take the chance on Sub-Saharan Africa, already viewed by many as a high-risk visa market.
This is particularly in the wake of new March student visa grant data released by the Department last week, which continues to point to pressure across the sector. The total grant rate for the year-to-date, 1 July 2025 to 31 March 2026, has hit a low of 79.1 per cent.
The story is worse when you consider that the 1 January to 31 March 2026 (third quarter) total grant rate of 74.2 per cent is the lowest it has been in the last 21 years.
And although the third quarter grant rates for some of the top ten enrolment markets (as at 2025) such as Nepal (45.5%), India (57.7%), Bangladesh (59.4%) are near diabolical, taking a risk on Sub-Saharan Africa doesn’t make a great deal of sense. The Sub-Saharan Africa story doesn’t fill the sector with any confidence either:
- Year-to-date (1 July 2025) to 31 March 2026: 72.2%
- Third quarter: 60.8%
- Independent ELICOS: 15.4%
- VET: 38%
When considering the top four Sub-Saharan African countries in Australia in terms of student enrolments in 2025, the visa grant data for the third quarter is a mixed bag:
- Kenya: 53.6%
- Nigeria: 81.1%
- Zimbabwe: 74.1%
- South Africa: 91.7%
Government continues to talk about the need for diversification, but providers argue diversification becomes difficult when visa outcomes themselves are acting as a deterrent.
The problem for many providers is no longer student demand. It’s whether anyone can work out which students are actually likely to get a visa.
The webinar also comes at a time where there is continued uncertainty in the sector about recent visa decision-making and how current settings are being applied. In a recent article for The Koala News (TKN 040526), Jon Chew outlined growing frustration among providers and agents over inconsistent outcomes and a lack of clarity around what constitutes a “genuine” student in the current environment, arguing that student visa decisions have become a lottery.
“Instead of clear and consistent signals in refusal letters, there is ambiguity. As a result, institutions cannot play their part in assessing which students are genuine, and which may be abusing the student visa for other purposes,” Chew said.
It also follows broader debate within the international education sector about the government’s overall approach to migration and student visas, including issues raised in commentary by Mike Ferguson in The Koala News (TKN 050526) yesterday.
“The SSVF is…now approaching a critical junction with new pressure points emerging. Visa grant rates are at their lowest on record and have suffered from major volatility – something that should not occur given the respective roles of the Department and providers,” Ferguson argues.
To be fair, the Department appears to be trying to provide greater insight into current visa settings and decision-making factors, including regional risk profiles, what constitutes a “genuine student”, emerging integrity concerns and common visa refusal drivers.
But, given the uncertainty and perceived inconsistency around student visa decision-making, some providers and agents may question how useful or reliable that guidance will be in practice. For many in the sector, the concern is not a lack of information about recruitment markets, but rather the unpredictability of visa outcomes.
Ultimately, the challenge for the sector is not whether diversification is desirable, but whether current visa settings make diversification realistic. Providers and agents can only diversify with confidence when visa decision-making is transparent, consistent and reasonably predictable.
Until then, webinars encouraging recruitment into emerging markets may struggle to gain traction, not because the sector lacks interest in new markets, but because many providers no longer feel they can reliably assess the likelihood of visa success. In that environment, the biggest barrier to diversification may not be student demand at all, but rather, declining confidence in the visa system itself.
Webinar details are available here, for anyone still confident they can predict a student visa outcome.
