Australia to tighten Indian student restrictions
Updated
Australia's colleges and universities are expressing concern over new immigration rules that could restrict the flow of students from India. Indians now make up the second largest cohort of international students in Australia, and is this country's fastest growing education market. Most of the 65,000 concerned are in vocational education. But India, together with a number of countries, has now been moved up the Australian government scale of immigration risk, and applicants will be subject to tougher scrutiny. The reclassification is based on such factors as rates of document fraud, overstaying and asylum claims.
Presenter: Tom Fayle
Speaker: Jennie Lang, international pro-vice chancellor, University of New South Wales, Singapore
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LANG: Well we have a large number of international students and a smaller number students in India, around 400. We're concerned because that cohort is a high achieving cohort, and we source our students from very good secondary schools for undergraduate programs, and from very good universities either in India or overseas for post-graduate programs. So we've built up a fairly good profile of the students that are going to come to our university and succeed, and that's the experience that we've had with students from India. They add to diversity in our classrooms, they speak perfect English, and they're highly motivated students and they come to focus on their academic studies and then to return home to India.
FAYLE: As I've said most of the students here from India are in vocational education. Do you think the universities should be exempt from these rule changes?
LANG: We definitely do think the universities should be exempt because we're looking at students that are motivated by different factors. The students that are coming to the University of New South Wales come with a firm focus on advancing their careers. They're not necessarily seeking to migrate to Australia, they're seeking to advance their careers so that they can go home and work in the family business or work anywhere in the world in large multinational organisations. So we would really like to see universities exempt from this policy because it's not fair to have one policy applying across such a broad spectrum, and a spectre that includes significant numbers of students coming into shorter VET programs.
FAYLE: Now the Australian export education market is worth billions of dollars to this country. Where does the Indian market fit into that?
LANG: Well when you speak in broad national terms it's a significant component of the export of education, even though the numbers are much smaller in the group of eight leading universities, they are an important component and that particular group has been steadily growing over time, and a number of the leading universities in Australia have invested heavily in building important education relationships that are highly strategic, that are two-way and we just feel that it's doing a disservice, not only to Australian universities, but also to the top achieving students from India who want to come and study here.
FAYLE: So have you already had some negative feedback about these changes?
LANG: Well we have, I have one of my senior staff in India as we speak and she's been ringing in every two to three days saying Jennie I don't know what's happening because the students that we're attracting, the quality is just getting better and better, and they have concerns that they will not be able to meet the strict visa processes now to come to UNSW, even though those students of a similar ilk have been with us and have done very well and have done the right thing, and gone home and made a contribution back in India.
FAYLE: So what advice can you give to prospective students in countries like India to smooth the approval of their visa applications?
LANG: Well we're just saying that as soon as they get their results, as soon as they've got all their documentation together to apply as quickly as possible and then we will do what we can to work with the relevant authorities to say please at least process the best applicants first, don't put them in a queue, and also give priority to students that are coming out of the top schools and the top universities, because we know that they're going to be able to come and to succeed in a very, very strong academic environment. And also if the country that's going to become an important trade partner, it's going to be important strategically for Australia and history has shown that where we have top students returning to those countries they have the ability then to influence policy at home and build effective and sustainable trade relations and diplomatic relations. So I think we've got to start taking a very long term perspective when we set policies, particularly government policies to deal with short-term problems that are isolated to particular fields of study or particular types of education.
