The Australian Association of Education Representatives of India has launched a petition citing concerns that students are being caught in a “political crossfire” leading to high rates of “unfair” visa rejections or delays.
The petition, which is addressed to Home Affairs minister Clare O’Neil and education Minister Jason Clare, argues that new policies impacting international students of late “do not show the faces or families” of those affected.
AAERI says that those affected are “invested financially and emotionally in this journey at every stage”.
“When they are handed a visa rejection… or asked to withdraw their file, the bewilderment and the horror is so acute and profound that it is hard to explain [to them] that there has been a sudden policy change and that Australia wants to bring down net migration,” the petition, written by secretary Sonya Singh, reads.
“This entire process takes eight to 12 months of advice and preparation. Recruitment agencies, universities and students spend hundreds of hours together to help make the process seamless at a great cost.”
The university classification system – with providers put into tiers based on the likelihood that students are seeking to work in Australia rather than study – is “confusing and unfair”.
Students should be given time to make other choices so as to not “waste time” waiting for a visa to be rejected, and that those whose applications are rejected should have the recourse to appeal, the petition said.
Read more about the petition in the following articles:
PieNews and Koala News
The SMH article of this day details how prestigious Universities are now speaking out and appealing to the Minister of Home Affairs to reconsider the decision to slow processing and increased refusal rate of student visas. This article details how Universities are now openly critical of how the International students who would have commenced this intake have missed out and I am hearing that many of the University accommodation places now remain vacant as the students who had booked them have failed to enrol. The same may be true of various accommodation providers around the campuses. The strategy to reduce the student intake to cater to accommodation shortages generally will have now absolutely opposite impact.
The above article quotes me as following:
Global Reach education agency director Ravi Singh said he’d rarely seen non-political entities such as universities coming out so clearly against the government. Students would speak ill of Australia as a study destination because of their experiences in the visa system.
“They won’t just lose a visa fee, they will lose a full year of their life,” he said.
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