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Immigration Daily News JCU refuses RMA agent contract due to RMA's 'focus on the Indian market'
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JCU refuses RMA agent contract due to RMA's 'focus on the Indian market'
An RMA recently was refused an agent contract with the James Cook University (JCU) primarily due to the RMA's ‘focus on the Indian market’. The Migration Alliance wrote to the JCU for an explanation but they have avoided answering some key questions. The Migration Alliance would like feedback from other RMAs on this matter in order to properly consider further action if needed.
"After discussion with the agent review panel we have decided not to offer [the agency] an agent contract. This is primarily due to your focus on the Indian market, a market we are not looking to expand upon."
These were the words used in a letter from the JCU to an RMA recently when refusing the RMA's application for an agent contract with the JCU.
To help clarify the issue, the Migration Alliance requested that JCU address the concern as to how such a stated policy is not discriminatory.
JCU initially responded to the Migration Alliance query stating, “James Cook University (JCU) refutes absolutely any imputations or assertions that JCU policy or decisions made by or on behalf of JCU are in any way discriminatory or in breach of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth) or any other legal requirements. JCU strongly defends its record of welcoming international students, including Indian students.”
In the one-page letter, the JCU added, “JCU has not stopped recruiting students of Indian origin. JCU continues to recruit Indian students both directly and through authorised agents. At the present time, JCU has contracts with 14 agents recruiting Indian students, with in excess of 60 branch offices located in India and Australia.”
According to Wikipedia, James Cook University is reputed as Queensland’s second oldest university with an estimated 4000 students, including over 400 foreign students. According to JCU, "The largest number of new international full degree students at JCU's Townsville and Cairns campuses in 2014 are Indian students. JCU has accepted 115 new Indian students at its Townsville and Cairns campuses for the current teaching period. This is nearly a threefold increase on our acceptance numbers for new Indian students in 2013. Taking into account continuing student numbers, there are currently a total of 235 Indian students studying at our Townsville and Cairns campuses."
(See JCU's full response: Response-to-Migration-Alliance-Query-19-February-2014-1.pdf )
What was missing from JCU's response were answer to these questions:
- How is it not discriminatory for an agent to be denied an agent contract with the JCU on the basis of the agent’s focus on the Indian market?
- Will JCU approve applications for an agent contract from agents who ‘focus on the Indian market’
- Has JCU recently granted agent contracts to agents who ‘focus on the Indian market’;
- Is indeed, “the Indian Market, a market [JCU} is not looking to expand upon.”?
Photo Caption: The Migration Alliance put the listed questions to the JCU but the JCU responded only as follows: “JCU has provided its response to the concerns raised by you in your letter received on 17 February 2014, in its correspondence of 19 February 2014. JCU does not propose to correspond further in relation to this matter. “
Comments
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Wednesday, 26 February 2014Dean I don't think anyone from Migration Alliance has made racist comments to JCU, have they?
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Wednesday, 26 February 2014
Migration Alliance is not doing something wrong here. Dean I think you are out of line. The Indian government considers anyone of Indian origin up to four generations removed to be a PIO, with the exception of those who were ever nationals of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan, or Sri Lanka. It says this on Wikipedia.
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Wednesday, 26 February 2014
Damaging a respected University by making unfounded allegations of racist discrimination is poor conduct for Migration Alliance.
It reflects poorly on the Board and the members of MA and brings the Migration advice profession into disrepute. -
Wednesday, 26 February 2014
If JCU don't want money then spend it with Queensland University. I am proudly from Indian origin and work at the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP). Do you know that in my division at DIBP there are 36 people who identify themselves as being of Indian origin. Next time someone asks me which Uni to go to I will advise them that JCU is not looking for people from Indian Origin so try another uni.
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Wednesday, 26 February 2014
Which Migration Alliance executive has made unfounded allegations of racist discrimination? Dean, it is poor conduct of yours to accuse an organisation of discrimination without explaining how they have done this. How do you know what members of MA stand for? How do you know if they care more for free speech and truth than they do about 'looking bad'. Bringing the migration profession into disrepute. I contacted the MA and they have confirmed that they have over 4000 members. That means that the majority of the profession are MA members. If MA members are not complaining but are endorsing the MA for this stance then this means that the profession is not being brought into disrepute. I think you are a bored MIA members with an axe to grind because this blog is more successful and relevant than anything you guys do over there. If you were smart you would realise that Migration Alliance has members from the MIA and Law Council and Law Society as well as barristers and accountants as well. The university damages itself by it's own written admisssions. Everyone don't feed the troll. His name is Dean.
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Wednesday, 26 February 2014Dean, perhaps you could disclose who you are (eg your full name and MARN). A complaint has been made to me that you are trolling the blog here.
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Wednesday, 26 February 2014
Liana, thank-you for your invitation. When it is a requirement for everyone posting to do so under their name and MARN, I will be happy to oblige. I am not trolling the blog and will continue to join in the various forums. You would be aware that I am a member of Migration Alliance however if you wish to cancel my membership because my views are unwelcome then that is your perogative.
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Wednesday, 26 February 2014
It is quite obvious that JCU simply does not want to expand its representation any further in the Indian market. Most universities have a number of concerns in considering appointing agents including:
1. Will we will be able to control a greater number of agents? Schools do have a number of responsibilities under the ESOS act and the more agents they have, the harder it is to manage and monitor compliance (although in reality I don't believe many schools actually do such monitoring so it may be a bit of a armchair argument).
2. Do we have marketing funds to support a greater number of agents? Schools need to send out brochures and visit agents, the more agents they need to visit the more funds they need to extract from management. Depending on the school, such funds can be rather limited.
3. Will appointing further agents create problems in terms of the nationality mix? This is actually a key selling point for many schools. If the school is 90% one foreign nationality, students from that nationality start complaining they are not getting a real Australian experience, students from other foreign countries complain similarly and feel excluded, and Australian students start to feel uncomfortable (not that they should but many do especially at a regional University like JCU).
So the decision by JCU is reasonable enough although perhaps could have been explained better in the first instance.
With that said, I think migration agents who are also education agents should be preferred over education agents due to their ability to appropriately advise students in regards to their visa application and any potential or lack of potential in gaining permanent residence on graduation. -
Wednesday, 26 February 2014
Eric, I would have to agree - it's painfully obvious from this incident that JCU is trying to limit the number of enrolments by Indian students, however they define "Indian" (which is a very important question). So let them be up front about that! If they want fewer Indian applicants, (or said another way, want to limit the increase in Indian applicants) let them say so and be proud of their stance on this issue, and let it be out there for all potential students (Indian and otherwise) to consider. As I said before, if a school is going to create ethnic, racial, or nationality quotas either directly (by limiting enrolment) or indirectly (by refusing new education agent applications based on the ethnic/racial/nationality focus of the agent), then let the school disclose those for all to see and be honest and open about that. Then we have full disclosure and students and agents alike can evaluate the school's quotas and decide if any particular school is the kind of a school they want to attend and/or promote.
Re: the attempt to smear the MA with charges of racism (of course, with no specifics cited), that's a very lame attempt to deflect the issue from JCU's singling out students of a particular nationality/origin in THEIR agent refusal letter. The MA writer who brought this important issue to the forefront should be recognised for the courage it takes to facilitate public discussion of this highly controversial topic. -
Wednesday, 26 February 2014
Hi Dean
I don't want to cancel your membership. I have had a good look at the comments and they appear to be free speech so I am ok with them staying up there so far. Happy blogging.
By the way you make a fair point about identifying yourself. There is no need to. My apologies.
Liana -
Wednesday, 26 February 2014
All good, Liana. Thank-you for your thoughtful reply.
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Wednesday, 26 February 2014
Putting aside the ethnic issue, I agree with Virender Rana's comment. I would also strongly support the Migration Alliance taking legal action against universities that have agreements in place with education agents in Australia that require those agents to give immigration advice without any process of ensuring those agents are also registered migration agents. I had this exact situation arise with the University of South Australia and have their standard education agent agreement that explicitly pushes the assessment of whether someone is a genuine temporary entrant, a Schedule 2 requirement, onto the agent whether registered or not.
This is an outrageous undermining of our occupation and unlawful and I would implore the MA to coordinate some kind of response. -
Wednesday, 26 February 2014
For anyone who has not yet completed the petition (RMAs only) for the stopping of unregistered migration agents please do so: http://survey.constantcontact.com/survey/a07e8yadp59hrsosca2/start
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Wednesday, 26 February 2014
Interestingly, I had approached Murdoch University just a couple of days ago for an agency for recruiting students from India, but I was refused on the same grounds that they have enough agents covering Indian market for the moment. I have been told to enquire with the university some time after six months for an agency, because at that time they may consider taking on some fresh agents!
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Thursday, 27 February 2014
The University has stated that they already have enough agent representation in a particular market.
Granted, they may not have worded their statement as well as they could have. However, have we become so sensitive that any statement which is not perfectly voiced, be immediately labelled discrimination?
The more important issue in my opinion, is education institutions using Agent who are not Registered. -
Thursday, 27 February 2014
Until MARA gets serious about cracking down on education agents (who are not registered migration agents) providing migration advice, I doubt we'll see much change in that area. It's bad enough that unqualified people are giving migration advice, and that in some cases the schools are requiring them to do so (ie, Sched 2 for student visas) as part of their education agent agreements. But it gets even worse when you see education agents who can make thousands of dollars of commissions from the schools offering student visa preparation for free or for a rate that is way below the market (ie, $100-$200, etc). It's impossible for a Registered Migration Agent to compete with those kind of fees unless that RMA is also an education agent and can do the same cost-shift onto the edu work.
Bottom line: if a school is asking or requiring an edu agent to provide migration advice, the agent should be required to be an RMA and provide evidence of that to the school. If that agent is not an RMA and is unlawfully providing migration advice as a requirement of the school, then both the school and the edu agent should be subject to sanctions. What's the point of having a licenced advisor system (ie, RMAs) if edu agents can ignore the laws with impunity and get away with it? It attacks the credibility of the entire profession. -
Friday, 28 February 2014
How did the issue of "we have enough agents in one area" turned into racist and discriminatory? I have been refused many times on this grounds and never made a complaint because I understand they have many agents from India and are not looking for more. As you all know, education agencies in India are money making machines so the Universities receive lots of student applications from their branches all over the country. Adding few more agents that will send students occasionally just increases the University's paperwork. They prefer to have fewer agents with high volume of applications rather then 100 agents with few applications each. It is all about reducing the University work.
It's better to try again after few months or just work with other agents as I do. It is not logical to spend time complaining because it waste of time and will not change the University decision. It is all about saving money and higher conversion rates so if you cannot maintaining certain number of applications they will suspend your account after while anyway. I was told by CQU in Sydney that I need minimum number and high conversion rate that is hard to maintain by a MARA agents because we do 2 jobs, education and visa applications. The businesses that only focuses on Education have more success because it's all they do.
I have had many options to open office in India in the past 5 years but I found it to be very hard to control because the education agents there make their own documents and the integrity of the applications will be compromised without my knowledge. I chose to maintain my integrity as MARA agent and work with on shore clients only. -
Friday, 28 February 2014
Why do overseas education agents be regulated????
1. They make bogus paperwork to show funds required for student visa applications;
2. They facilitate sham marriages called contract marriages of students that are about to apply for a student visa, This leads to the dependent applicant getting a free ride to Australia, in the process charging tens of thousands of dollars.
3. They give advise regarding how this contracted spouse, in point no. 2 would be working more then 20 hours per week to pay university fees;
4. The education agent whom the university have contact with, has further sub-franchised out the recruitment to other agent and the chain continues, each one having a share of commission in the gravy train.
So their are 1000's of agents operating contracted to the main agents.
Are the universities liable for the ethical conduct of these sub- franchised agents?
Are the universities ready to take ownership of the conduct of these agents ?
5. recently I attended a education fair in Punjab, India, All the big names universities representatives were there, education agents was lodging spouse visa application.
I think it is about time education agents should be registered, just as migration agents, as it lead to quality and genuine students with the proper intentions of studying come to Australia. Universities and all other education provider should be held accountable of their actions. -
Monday, 17 March 2014
This is not the case with JCU. Every university in Australia is working on the same strategy. We are qualified Registered Migration agent and Also done a QEAC from Pier i.e. An Education agent course from PIER. On top of that, we are Australian Citizens.
In stead of all these, these universities are promoting non qualified Agents and moreover they are also not CITIZEN OF AUSTRALIA.
In one case, it came to my notice that one of the company is india helps one girl to get appointment in RMIT and this girl put the straight approaching RMIT student to the agent account. This is going in Australian market. This is the way, the 14-15 agents appointed by these universities are fulfilling the target. i have a proof of what i am saying and can prove that.
Why not we all jointly raise the voice and make it compulsory for the universities to appoint qualified RMA, QEAC and there citizens instead of appointing and giving business to non-citizens.
Immigration blog
My name is Sheelagh Kukadia and I think I am Indian. I was born in West Africa to Indian parents. We then moved to the UK where I was schooled in Cheltenham. Now, we live in Queensland, Australia. I still think I am Indian. I am an Australian Citizen. I am well connected here in Queensland. I will notify all of my friends to look at this blog article so that any of them who are from 'Indian Origin' choose not to send their children to or attend James Cook Uni themselves. What a disgrace.