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Overseas DIAC officers may be 'sabotaging' international student applications

Overseas DIAC officers may be 'sabotaging' international student applications

The Department of Immigration and Citizenship is "sabotaging" efforts to encourage foreign students to pursue higher education opportunities in Australia, according to one private provider.

Stephen Nagle, director of the Holmes Institute, told The Australian that offshore immigration officers could be rejecting as many as 25 to 30 per cent of the students who want to come to Australia to pursue studies including English language instruction, higher education and vocational training.

He asserts that not only are offshore DIAC officials rejecting applicants, but some are also suggesting that these individuals should instead study in their home country as this might be cheaper.

This, he explained, is counterproductive to the institute's efforts to sell Australia as a desirable destination to study.

"Some countries have really been taken offline - Nepal has about an 80 per cent rejection rate - and people have stopped applying for vocational education and training," he told The Australian.

He gave one example of an incident in Thailand, where a Bangkok-based immigration officer rejected one student's application to come to Australia to study English on the basis that she had not taken measures to seek out English-language instruction in her home country. This, the official claimed, indicated that the application may not be genuine.

Amusingly, added Nagle, the applicant's rejection letter contained several examples of incorrect English.

Student visa applicants, according to the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, must satisfy the Genuine Temporary Entrant requirement, which assesses their previous immigration history, any insight into the applicant's circumstances in Australia, as well as their personal and financial commitments in their home country.

Applicants who are minors will also be considered on the basis of the intentions of their spouse/partner, parents or legal guardians.

Nagle's observations are echoed by recent statements from the Australian Council for Private Education and Training's Ingeborg Loon, who told The Australian that new tests introduced in November 2011 to evaluate whether foreign applicants wishing to study in Australia were genuine are too subjective.

"It depends on who's processing your visa, it depends who's interviewing you," she said.

There are a range of subclass visas available for international students, including English Language Intensive Courses for Overseas Students (ELICOS), exchange programs at the secondary school level, primary or secondary school courses, higher education (including bachelor degrees and masters degrees by coursework), vocational education and training, and postgraduate research (masters degrees by research or doctoral degrees).



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