New Immigration Rules Open Door To Post Graduate Students

Getting an education in Australia is actually one of the major reasons why so many foreigners travel to the country yearly. Indeed, Australia's educational system is considered one of the best in the world today, which is the reason behind so many students going here annually. However, the recent changes in immigration policies have many people in and out of the country fear that these numbers will go down.

As can be recalled, the changes in the skilled migration program was implemented late last year. These changes included the removal of a lot of the jobs that were considered to be low level by the immigration department. Since many of the foreign students here were taking vocational courses, which are some of the positions that were considered by the immigration department as low level, they ended up having to cancel out their enrollment. It should be noted that the main reason behind many foreign students taking vocational courses is because, under the older system, these are the ones with which it is easiest to get a permanent residency visa after graduation.

Since, as have been said, much of the foreign student population here are taking these low level courses, many education experts here feared that such moves will certainly decrease the number of students coming into the country. And it seemed that those fears were realized when the number of foreign enrollees suddenly dropped at the start of this school year. The situation was further aggravated by the closure of several colleges who are mainly catering to these foreign students.

However, the government is quick to allay these fears. They argue that these moves are necessary in order to get the right people into the country. As it is, according to the latest statistics, Australia is actually suffering from a shortage of highly skilled professionals, due to the fact that most are gunning for the lower level positions.

And it seemed that the immigration department was somewhat vindicated in their move. After the initial shock from both students and educators, and a dip in foreign student numbers, everything is now starting to return back to the same level again. However, this time around, there's a big difference. While previously, a lot of students are coming in to become cooks and waiters. More and more students are now enrolling in highly skilled courses, such as engineering and business administration. Post graduate enrollment also posted high numbers, as more and more students seek to get a better positi0n under the new immigration rules . Thus it seemed that all of these moves are working as intended.