Student visa applications face greater scrutiny as cancellations due to fake documentation increase by three-fold. Overseas education brokers are being blamed for the threefold increase in the number of student visas cancelled by DIBP over the last two years for falsifying English test results and financial documentation. DIBP however is targeting students without announcing any measures to curb the fraudsters who may be encouraging and facilitating the applications.

The student visa is perhaps one of the easiest visas and quickest visas to obtain for a stay in Australia exceeding 12 months particularly under the streamlined visa processing program (SVP). However, the student visa advisory sector is also one of that is flooded with fraudsters acting as education broker who work unfettered and ungoverned by the professional code of conduct administered by the MARA. This is simply because DIBP  has not banned unregistered migration practice and still accepts applications from unregistered practitioners.

There is no requirement for such brokers who enrol students and arrange student visas to be registered by the MARA. Therefore there are no repercussions for flouting the law and even potentially misguiding students that all they are doing is ‘legitimate’. It is really up the prospective students to ask the question, "Show me your MARA registration papers" or search the MARA Register of Agents before they part with their money.

Figures obtained by The Australian show 7061 student visas were cancelled in the last financial year, with 4930 cancelled the previous year and 1978 cancellations in the 2012 financial year. In addition the Australian notes that a DIBP also identified about 1000 “course hopping” international students, who arrived on streamlined student visas but later transferred to unaccredited colleges - a practice that is illegal.

DIBP however has decided to target students in its efforts to sort out this mess. There is no indication that it intends to do anything about their unregistered brokers.

“Responding to a spike in “non-genuine” students, most commonly recruited by third-party broking services based offshore, the federal government has quietly stepped up a campaign to assist tertiary colleges in identifying real students” reports The Australian. DIBP however has not announced any action to deal with the third-party broking services.

Thomson Ch’ng, president of the Council of International Students Australia, told The Australian that on some occasions, agents would organise visas even though they knew students weren’t genuine because this was an easier avenue for entry.

Schools and universities are now paying more attention to the problem. Navitas chief executive Rod Jones told The Australian that the company had immediately applied risk-mitigation strategies, including the cancellation of some 40 agent partnerships, and was initiating in-country face to face interviews with students where required.

The Australian has identified a number of brokers in Nepal who have been blacklisted by local colleges, including the Kangaroo Education Foundation and Global Village International Education in Kathmandu, which advertises a 100 per cent visa success rate.

“Tougher screening has seen the number of student visas granted from India fall from 91 per cent of all applications in the third quarter of 2013 to 82 per cent for the corresponding last year while visas granted to Nepalese students fell five percentage points to 91 per cent,” reports The Australian.

The Migration Alliance, has been campaigning for several years to stop unregistered practice - the efforts include submissions to the the Reviewer of the OMARA and submissions to Senator Cash to Stop unregistered Practice. The Migration Alliance has also started a petition on Change.org which you are encouraged to sign, to get DIBP to stop unregistered practice once and for all.