Rishi Patel, a student who wanted to study in Australia, is in a dilemma. He paid his visa application fees for a course in hair design in Melbourne and was planning to start his own firm there after getting permanent residency (PR).
The Australian government, however, had different plans. This month, it decided to keep occupations like hairdressing, cookery and community welfare out of the Skilled Occupation List (SOL). A place in SOL implies a skill is highly-valued and can lead to PR in Australia.
“I have now been advised by my consultant that while I will get a visa, I will not be eligible to apply for a PR and hence should either change my course or objective of going to Australia. Even going to some other country is not likely to serve my purpose of getting a PR. I am now considering other options and may even look at dropping the plan of going to Australia as it will then be a waste of a lot of money for just a course,” says a morose Patel.
With the closure of some private colleges, besides racial attacks coupled with tightened visa rules, there has been a significant drop in the number of enrolments by Indian students. Australia witnessed a 40 per cent decline in applications this April from overseas students, according to a recent report by IDP — a partner in IELTS which is a leading English language proficiency test institute.
With the Australian government now shutting the doors on cooks, hairdressers, journalists, naturopaths and community welfare aspirants, the student flow to Australia may only drop. The lure of staying back in Australia after completing a short-term course is what prompted the number of Indian students in Australia to go as high as 90,000 last year. Skilled professionals seeking migration to Australia without using the education pathway can apply under the current SOL before 1 July 2010 as it does not come in effect until such time.
China and India are Australia’s top two source countries for the $17 billion overseas student industry, which employs 125,000 people across the economy, and funds 25 per cent of university teaching, according to the IDP report. The increased demand of short-term courses had earlier led many new education providers to set up the shops purely because of the ever increasing demand of these courses. Even a large number of private colleges, which had mushroomed in Australia to cash in on growing demand from these courses, will now feel the heat.
Naresh Gulati, CEO, Oceanic Consultants, believes there will be a decline of 40-60 per cent in the number of students going to Australia now for these courses. He says, “A recent survey by Australian government stated that close to 50 per cent students who go to Australia take the fraudulent route, which resulted in stricter visa rules. Australian education so far grew largely on short-term courses as the focus for these students was PR and not education. Suddenly, there was traffic flow towards the UK for private colleges but the UK government very smartly started rejecting applications from North India, which saw a huge number of applications.”
Gulati believes the trend will shift to students pursuing IT, teaching, nursing, medicine and engineering courses in Australia and that too from technical and further education (TAFE) and government-owned colleges.
“The Australian market has always been a preferred destination for post-graduate students. Most IT, accounting and engineering-based courses are still very popular with Indian students. With the new SOL policy, the Australian market will take six to eight months to recover. We have always been telling students to choose courses, based on their educational interest and not use the course as a means to obtain PR.
It takes three years to complete a course and the students feel trapped when such a policy is announced. In fact, a genuine overseas educational consultant should not send students with this aim abroad,” says Gulshan Kumar, president, Association of Australian Education Representatives in India.
However, all students who were holding the student visa before February 8, 2010 have been given time till December 31, 2012 to complete their studies and apply for PR or skilled — graduation (temporary) (subclass 485) provisional visa.
Gulati cautions: “Migration policies can change anytime and so the students must choose courses in sync with their career objective. In fact, I know that over 20 private colleges are in line to shut down in Australia over the next 6-12 months because there is a huge cash flow crunch. These are the colleges that offer such short-term courses and have grown at an incredible speed. These will be forced to shut shop anytime now.”
