Foreign Students Feel The Effect Of Visa Changes

In Australia, student visa changes have caused quite a stir lately. Indeed, when the Department of Immigration and Citizenship announced early last year that they will be making changes to the student migration program, many predicted that it will have drastic effects. Now, it seems that all their worries are starting to come true.

It can be recalled the the DIAC started implementing the changes in an effort to align the student program with the new thrust of the Australian government for immigration. Here, the department decided to reorganize the list of courses that are eligible for visa application. In order to make way for more higher level courses, the DIAC removed around a hundred vocational courses from the list. The department also opted to impose a tougher set qualifications for those applying for a student visa

Upon the announcement of the new rules, many foreign students in the country protested, as they argue that these new rules are severely limiting their chance of entering the country. Many experts have also added that the new rules are likely to affect would be student visa applicants. And as it turns out, the number of applications has in fact started to decline, following the enactment of the new immigration setup.

In the last few months alone, the number of foreign students for the month of September has dropped by around 9 percent from the period last year. The drop is considered by many to be very significant, as the Australian foreign student industry has shown remarkable growth in the past decade.

And with that, it is not only the students who are getting worried about the way the foreign student program is going. The schools themselves are worried, mainly because they would be losing a major source of income. As it is,many of the tertiary education schools in the country count on foreign students for their main source of revenue.

To make matters worse, the foreign education sector has to deal with other problems. One of these is the competition posed by other countries in the foreign student market. In particular, both the United States and Britain are pushing hard to attract more foreign students into their fold.

Thus, many in the Australian foreign student sector are now clamoring for the government to remedy the situation. For their part, government officials have said that they are now trying to work closely with school heads in order to determine ways to attract more students. They have also said that they are considering a review of the current program to better assess what needs to be done more.

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