Oz guns for students visa abusers

Immigration Minister Chris Evans said the changes strike the right balance between making the visa process easier for genuine students while imposing additional checks on those who may seek to abuse the system.

Over one lakh Indian students are pursuing higher education in Australia.

Students studying more than one course will now be required to meet a higher level of risk assessment within their package of courses.

“This measure will help reduce fraud by ensuring students are not able to select courses they do not intend to complete,simply to receive a more favourable risk assessment level,” Evans said.

Changes have also been made to migration regulations to strengthen the visa cancellation guidelines where a student is found to have deferred or suspended studies for non-genuine reasons.

“International students who are genuinely experiencing difficult circumstances will still be able to take temporary leave from their studies,” the minister said.

“However,my department now has an improved capacity to verify students’ claims where there are not compassionate or compelling reasons for deferral or suspension.”

There are also new rules aimed at streamlining visa requirements for prospective postgraduate students from all countries.

“This will enable postgraduate research sector applicants to lodge applications using the e-Visa facility and support growth in this sector,” Evans said.

“This decision is based on the low level of fraud and high level of compliance with visa conditions in the sector.”

Oz to lift standard of English proficiency for all students

Australian government would be lifting standards of English proficiency for all students,including internationals,at the university level following evidence of poor language skills among overseas born graduates.

Good practise principles for English,drawn up for Department of Education,Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) following evidence of poor English among overseas-born graduates,will be extended to cover all students and higher education providers,according to a local media report.

However,there have been concerns about enforcement,cost and a more crowded curriculum.

The overseas student industry sought to respond to alarming findings by Monash University’s Bob Birrell,who said that more than one-third of former overseas students who had graduated from local institutions and won permanent residency as skilled migrants had English language scores too low for university study or professional work,reported ‘The Australian’.

Last year DEEWR unveiled the good practise principles,which Australian Universities Quality Agency monitors during audits.

According to International Student Security,a book due to be published next month,universities should make English language proficiency a mandatory requirement in degrees for all students.

“If we want to lift the bar on English language competency,we have to get beyond the idea that it is a remedial problem that a few hours in a semester can solve,” said co-author Simon Marginson.

Almost one-third of the 200 overseas students interviewed for the book reported problems with academic English.

Marginson warned that action to boost English proficiency would come at significant cost.

He said strong international student demand for English skills would likely underpin the market despite any rise in tuition fees to cover costs.

“On balance,I think we would gain rather than lose overall,and position ourselves better globally,” he said.