At last the Albanese government has laid out coherent policies to address the problem of soaring numbers of international students who have remained in Australia after graduation in the increasingly vain hope of eventually winning permanent residency.
Its migration package, announced on Monday, cuts back on the length of the post-study work visas available to international graduates, includes further measures against dodgy colleges that exploit students, and announces some new levers that the government can use behind the scenes to slow down numbers of arriving students if it so chooses.
This is the package the government needs to stabilise the international education industry following its rapid recovery from Covid, which has seen student numbers boom and the return of bad practices by unscrupulous colleges and agents who rort the system at every opportunity.
But, in an indication of the government’s previous confusion, it was only in July this year that it extended the length of post-study work visas for international students, and now they have been reduced again. Why were they extended in July, after the Parkinson migration review had reported in March on the growing numbers of temporary visa holders, including international student graduates, who were not skilled enough to get good jobs and unlikely to get permanent residency?
But overall the package is good policy that will support a sustainable international education export industry. It reduces the likelihood of the industry growing too fast in the post-Covid recovery and then crashing.
However one sector that will suffer is English language teaching. English language colleges are a significant industry in themselves and play a vital role in preparing international students to enrol in vocational and higher education courses. The government’s move to increase the English language proficiency level required to get a student visa (for example, for an English course leading to enrolment in a vocational qualification) is likely to hurt the colleges. “Some students might stay in their home country (to learn English) rather than come here,” English Australia chief executive Brett Blacker said.
Another group likely to suffer is the large number of reputable private vocational colleges, which are often unfairly tarred with the same brush as dodgy colleges. But although they offer genuine qualifications, demand for them will fall. One reason is the clampdown on visa hopping – that is, an international student who graduates with a higher education degree then decides to get another visa to do a vocational course to stay in Australia.
Finally, there have been continual rumours of the government putting caps on international student numbers. Don’t give them credence. Caps would be very difficult to manage. (Which authority would assign student caps each year to each institution and on what basis?) And the government doesn’t need them because the package also announces added powers for migration officials to refuse student visas and to slow down visa processing for high-risk education providers.
If, nearer the 2025 election, the government finds it necessary to slow international student arrivals further, it has given itself the means to quietly do so.
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