By Clay Lucas
Leaked federal government memos reveal large numbers of international students are exploiting a loophole in Australia’s visa system to abandon university courses for cheaper private colleges and then go on to work instead of study.
The documents also show the federal Education Department has taken little action on the issue despite admitting it was a serious problem at least 18 months ago.
Last year 11,000 overseas students signed up to undertake concurrent study. Credit: Peter Braig
International students in Australia can sign up for “concurrent study”, a rule designed to allow preparation for employment through short courses such as responsible service of alcohol or barista and hospitality training.
But with little oversight from authorities once they enter Australia, growing numbers of students are obtaining a student visa offshore via a university enrolment and then enrolling in a cheaper vocational education course once they arrive. In the past year, 11,000 overseas students signed up to undertake concurrent study.
In March 2022, an International Student Transfers Working Group led by the federal Education Department flagged in a leaked memo that “concurrent study is being misused”.
“The concurrent option appears to be misused by many [education] providers to facilitate student transfers, effectively allowing students to transfer to the second concurrent course without a release from the principal provider,” the memo said.
“This clearly indicates students undertaking concurrent study are not doing so for the purposes of a genuine complement to their primary course, but are instead using the option to transfer out of their first course.”
Minutes from a 2021 meeting of the same group also show no action being taken over the problem despite clear awareness of its impact.
A review of 21,000 students between 2018 and 2021 who undertook concurrent study, a memo said, showed “in a very large majority of cases, the initial [course] was not continued after one month of enrolment and the student instead continued only in the second course”.
An unreleased inquiry led by former Victoria Police chief commissioner Christine Nixon has found evidence of widespread corruption in Australia’s multibillion-dollar international education industry as well as rampant mistreatment of visa holders and a lack of enforcement. In response to the inquiry’s findings the federal government will on Monday announce new penalties, including jail, for employers who force migrant workers to breach their visa and a $50 million boost for the Australian Border Force.
The Home Affairs Department has issued visa cancellations to some international students, although a spokeswoman said that, while the department did not discuss individual cases, there had been 21 visa cancellations since last month. Some cancellations were issued to students undertaking concurrent study. The issue is being widely discussed on various migration agent social media pages.
A federal parliamentary inquiry into international education heard details last month of how, under the loophole, a student who enters Australia can drop out of their university course before being charged for their first semester, then study only at a vocational college.
Many students then do not even attend the cheaper course, despite having paid for it, instead using their time to work.
“It’s a rort that turns a high-quality student visa into a low-rent work visa,” said Julian Hill, a federal Labor MP who was once head of international education for the Victorian government and who is a member of the parliamentary inquiry. He said the issue of “course-hopping” should be addressed.
The federal Education Department and Home Affairs, Hill said, had been aware of the issue with concurrent study since the Morrison government’s time in office but little had been done to prevent it.
Hill said former education ministers Alan Tudge and Stuart Robert were made aware of the issue. “For years the Liberal government knew about this but did nothing,” he said.
Associate Professor Peter Hurley is the director of Victoria University’s Mitchell Institute, which specialises in analysing education policy. He said the concurrent study loophole circumvented the intent of Australia’s international education approach and compromised the system’s integrity.
“There is consternation that there are providers and agents facilitating this type of behaviour,” Hurley said. “They are the ones that possess the knowledge about loopholes. There also seems to be some difficulty in finding an appropriate regulatory response.”
He said the government needed to tackle the issue quickly. Last month Alison Cleary, assistant secretary of the Education Department’s international quality branch, told the international education inquiry there was real concern over course-hopping.
“The department is aware of the use of concurrent study to facilitate some inappropriate movements,” she said. “We would regard the number of transfers that are associated with concurrent study as more than we would like, more than we are expecting.”
An Education Department spokeswoman said a review of the Education Services for Overseas Students Act was under way to see how it could be improved to support “integrity in international education”. She said concurrent study was part of this review.
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