On the back of a group of vice-chancellors writing to Ministers for Home Affairs and Education, AAERI, the Indian Agents Association, has done the same, signalling that the frustration of groupings within the sector is growing.
In a petition dated 12 February, the letter says to the Ministers the group seeks to draw “attention to the plight of students and their families that are caught in a political crossfire leading to high rates of unfair visa rejections or delays in their student visa applications.”
“A student’s journey to study abroad is not a sudden or a quick decision but is a long drawn out process of academic preparations, language proficiency, financial capability and a series of exams and tests that he has to go through. A family pays the tuition fee upfront before the visa application is lodged and this is done after multiple checks by the agencies and universities compliance teams.
“This entire process takes 8 to 12 months of advise and preparation . Recruitment agencies , universities and students spend hundreds of hours together to help make the process seamless at a great cost . The students and their families are invested financially and emotionally in this journey at every stage and when they are handed a visa rejection or a cancelled ecoe or asked to withdraw their file , the bewilderment and the horror is so acute and profound that it is hard to explain that there has been a sudden policy change and that Australia wants to bring down net migration.” The letter reads
President of the Association of Australian Education representatives in India (AAERI), Mr Nishi Borra says “AAERI is concerned about genuine students that have been refused the visa. Many such students have opted to study at good universities in Australia. The point to note is that these students have opted for Australia over other destinations and thus for them it is a loss of time and money.”
“These students have all undergone checks both the university and agent. Refusal of such students without proper reasoning or with no reason leads to a loss of goodwill for Australia as a study destination. While it’s observed that Australia might be using the visa refusals to reduce the net student intake and, in such a scenario, the genuine students are caught in between.” Says Bora.
The letter puts forth five requests to the Ministers:
It is our request that the student visa process is reconsidered in its entirety . We want to highlight a few points below that need urgent fixing and may provide some solutions to the current problems we are all facing.
- The Streamlined Visa process system is outdated and has no relevance today.
- University classification of govt funded universities is confusing and unfair because every student chooses a university according to their own needs and circumstances . They are forced to make contrary choices if the government classifies these universities at different levels.
- There should be enough time given within the policy that allows students to make other choices and not waste their time or money waiting for a visa or being rejected.
- Unfair rejections of brilliant students who meet all requirements should have a recourseto appeal.
- An approval in preincipal or a PVA should trigger a full fee payment to the university so that loss is minimised if there is a visa rejection for the student and his family
The Koala spoke with Phil Honeywood, CEO at the International Education Association of Australia who said “IEAA has been making representations to Minister Claire O’Neil directly over the past several weeks. It was appreciated that the Minister met with 16 vice-chancellors who raised specific concerns in their joint letter. Our association is also keen for quality private providers and schools to be provided with a similar hearing.”
“Our understanding is that going forward, the Home Affairs Department will be much better prepared for peaks and troughs associates for a semester and term starts. There have been some specific country issues that have needed to be overcome, including the Pakistan visa team being reassigned to the Afgan refugee program. Concerns about the Nepalese banking system and delays in the start of the department’s Auto-visa IT platform.”
“However, in all of this, the government is concerned about the headline student number figure. Stakeholders should be reminded that it was the previous Morrison Government that opened the floodgates to many non-genuine students, and the current government have been attempting to put remedial policy measures in place since being elected.”
“Minister O’Neil has allocated 1 hour for discussions with the council for international education on Tuesday afternoon.” He said.
