Study in Australia: Key takeaways from new visa rules, migration plan

NEW DELHI: In order to clamp down on the entry of immigrants, Australia on Monday came up with a new migration plan proposing stricter visa rules that will have a significant effect on international students and skilled workers looking to work or study abroad.

At a media briefing on December 11, 2023, minister of home affairs Clare O'Neil said, "A record 5,10,000 people came to Australia in the year to June 2023", but that the government is trying to bring down the numbers by 50%.

Restricting graduates from applying for a vocational study visa after their post-study visa is over and reducing visa time for graduates are among the many steps the Australian government intends to take to halve the migrant intake. These are detailed in its report, Migration Strategy: Getting migration working for the nation.

The government strategy document extensively refers to a study titled Graduates in Limbo by the Grattan Institute, an independent policy research institute in Australia, It found that “32% of temporary graduate visa holders are returning to study when their visa expires to prolong their stay in Australia”. The trend, the report noted, has increased in recent years.

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Australia Study Visa: What changes?

These are the proposed changes for students and graduates hoping to work or study in Australia:

• Increasing English language requirements to improve the quality of students’ educational experience in Australia and reduce potential workplace exploitation

• Greater and more targeted scrutiny of student visa applications from high-risk providers

• Bolstering the student visa integrity unit in the Department of Home Affairs to reduce misuse of Australia’s student visa system

• Strengthening requirements for international education providers

• Restricting on-shore visa hopping that undermines system integrity and drives ‘permanent temporariness’

• Strengthen and simplify temporary graduate visas as in

1. Reducing temporary work visa time to two years for a bachelor's degree, two years for a master’s by coursework, three years for a master's by research and three years for PhD programmes. The existing settings are two years for bachelor's degree, three years for masters degree and four years for PhD.

2. The maximum eligible age for a temporary graduate will be reduced to 35 from 50.

3. Temporary graduate visa, or TGV streams, will be renamed as ‘Post-higher Education Work’ and ‘Post-Vocational Education Work’ streams. The ‘Replacement Stream’ of the TGV and the subclass 476 visa, which lets engineering graduates work and live in Australia for one year and six months, will be abolished.

4. A clearer visa processing time will ensure TGV for ‘Post-Higher Education Work Stream’ is processed within a 21-day service standard.

5. The work experience requirement for temporary skill shortage visa will be changed to give TGV holders more opportunity to move on to a skilled visa which will give the graduates faster pathways to permanent residency.

6. Develop new skills-in-demand visa, with full mobility and pathways to permanent residency.

7. Temporary skilled migrants will also be eligible to apply for permanent residency through self-nominated independent pathways, for example, through a reformed points test

8. Develop a specialist skills pathway to drive innovation and job creation

9. Develop a core skills (most temporary skilled migrants) pathway to meet targeted workforce needs.

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Temporary visa, visa-hopping

The Migration Strategy document reveals that most of the international students with a higher degree and who are on temporary visas return to seek admission in vocational education and training (VET) for an extension on their visa.

Students believe such visas will fetch them a permanent residency in Australia. Graduates returning to skilled jobs are working on a lower skill permanently on temporary visas “while reducing the number of graduates that are left in limbo and that stay despite having fewer prospects of permanent residence”, says the Migration Strategy report. The report adds that some temporary visa holders “visa hop” from visa to visa to extend their stay which has contributed to a growing cohort of “permanently temporary” former international students living in Australia

The number of international students staying in Australia on a second or subsequent student visa has grown by over 30% to more than 1,50,000 in 2022–23. “The biggest growth in visa hopping has been in the VET sector, where there is a lower likelihood of a credible course progression”, the report noted.

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Australia Visa: Genuine student test

As per the report, 50% of graduate visa holders are working in low-skilled jobs and are not gaining the skill necessary to be eligible for a skilled permanent visa. This has resulted in around 19,000 students and graduates staying in Australia for nine or more years under temporary status.

Every international student will have to appear for a new “Genuine Student test” to obtain a study and work visa. It will be a holistic assessment process that will identify students who genuinely intend to study in Australia and have a legitimate purpose for their temporary stay.