Australian
student visa fraud is at all-time high. The
number of student visas cancelled by the Australian government has tripled in the last two years.Figures revealed by The
Australian claim that student visa cancellations have doubled from 1,978 in
2012 to 4,940 in 2013. This comes in result of the change in system to Streamlined Visa Processing that is
available to some education providers.
The
Department of Immigration and Border Protection
identifies around 1,000 students who with the help of Streamlined Visa
Processing arrives in the country and later illegally moves into unaccredited
and often cheaper colleges. Rod Camm, CEO of the Australian Council for Private
Education and Training claims that with the extension of SVP to VET colleges,
it has opened up more entry routes for bogus students.
Camm claims that it’s the extreme case where the students hop the course with
the motivation to work rather than study and this practice will continue to
grow. This practice has also affected language schools, universities, TAFE and
VET colleges. Last year following a warning from global education provider
Navitas, companies cancelled around 40 agent partnerships and initiated
interviews from students from India and Nepal. Risk mitigation strategies were
applied last year in India and Nepal following higher than acceptable levels of
non-genuine student applications and this resulted in lower enrolments and may
affect the semester one 2015 intake. However CEO Rod Jones claims that they
will not compromise with the entry standards and risk adversely affecting
academic outcomes and student experience.
Thomson
Ch’ng, National President of Council of International Students Australia has
asked to make the data on student visa fraud public. Moreover CISA condemns the
practice of recruiting non genuine students to Australia and will continue to
work closely with the Australian government and the international education peak bodies.
In
2013, in an attempt to rebuild Australia’s international education sector,
government outlined plans to simplify visa access to low risk higher education
providers. Last year international students contributed AUS$15.74bn to the
economy. Interestingly in the peak year of 2010, government enforced stronger
rules to mitigate against students course hopping to unaccredited providers.
However
bogus students are still very much in the minority compared to genuine
international students who stay with a provider until graduation.
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