MMMigration & Recruitment的动态

Transcript

Listing to sunshine. And this is Table Talk with Leah. We have immigration expert Melanie McFarland here on the line with us talking on a very important issue involving the steep fall in the number of international student visas being granted by the Australian government. What's driving this and what impact is it going to have on our economy? We're about to find out. Melanie, welcome to Table Talk. Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks a lot, Leah. Good to be here. Now, Melanie, to start off. Would you be able to provide us with some context? What are some of the recent changes in the actual governments, international student visa policy? Yeah, sure. The thing is they haven't, they haven't actually been any. There hasn't been any new legislation, but there have been announcements of the migration strategy which came out at the end of last year, which talked about what was going to affect international education and student visas and so on, but no actual legislative. Changes just yet. OK. OK. See from what I understand what I've read, there's been a significant increase though in visa refusals and especially for some certain countries. My understanding is that India, Pakistan and Nigeria have been heavily impacted. What factors might be contributing to this spike? Yes, that's right. I mean there have been and I myself, we have offices in Colombia and we normally bring a lot of students over from there and we've seen gosh. I think over 70% rise in student visa refusals over these last few years, over these last few weeks. The thing is, in there, there was no legislative change, but there is the proposal that there's going to be a new genuine student requirement rather than the genuine temporary entry requirement which normally requires students to show that they can return to their country. There's definitely a a push to reduce numbers of students coming in at the moment and one of the ways of doing that. Looking at this, whether they're actually here to genuinely study as opposed to the fact that they're going to return home or not, But but no law has changed yet. But nonetheless, we're still seeing all of these visa refusals. So it's almost like a policy shift, policy shift before any laws have actually been approved. OK. And you've mentioned there that there's been a cut. They're needing to make this cut for migrant numbers and so they're targeting the overseas students at the moment. What's the intent behind this? Well, The thing is, I mean it. It all comes down to, yes, the so the release of the migration strategy at the end of last year and the government's announcement, namely Minister O'Neill, Home Affairs Minister and announcement that the temporary migration numbers are going to be cut. In fact, they're going to be halved by by by this time next year. Purportedly, I mean if they can actually do that. And the way to bring those numbers down is actually to target student visas because it's the it's the kind of the easiest way because they're overseas they can. Choose whether they're going to grant them or not. And so if they want to cut, cut temporary visas, you know, coming in, OK, well, let's look at student visas in that case, right. And with the impact that's having then on the Australian education sector, what what, what is the impact on our universities at the moment? Well, it's quite, it's quite high as you can imagine. If you know there are, as I mentioned from Columbia, there's a very high percentage of refusals and also from the Indian subcontinent that definitely is being seen as well. But it just means that. And also universities, so they're not just having visas refused, but the universities because they have these risk levels, but the way that they're assessed to have student visas, granted the universities don't want to impact those. So they're actually turning around and saying to some students. OK. We've given you a confirmation, what's called a confirmation of enrollment, but we're going to cancel it now because we think your student visa is going to be refused and we don't want to be impacted quite something actually. Yeah. So, yeah, so it's really affecting enrollment levels, which in turn is going to impact universities and other colleges that sector colleges as well because obviously that, that, you know, there's a lot of revenue that that comes from international students to of course, now Melanie, we do need to take a break. Are you able to stay on the line? We'll come back and play a song. And I chat some more, of course, no problem at all. Welcome back to Table Talk with Leah. If you have just tuned in, we have immigration expert Melanie MacFarlane here on the line with us today and we're talking on a very important issue involving the steep fall in the number of international student visas being granted by the Australian government. Melanie, I I wanted to ask you about the economic implications that this may have on Australian society because international education is a significant contributor. To to our economy here in Australia. So how is this gonna impact us? Yes, Leah, it's very important. It's the fourth largest export industry and it's worth and between about 30 and $40 billion to the economy. So it's it's highly significant. Also it creates more jobs than coal and iron ore would you believe about 240,000 jobs. So you know if that is impacted and we see such falls and numbers and the potential closure of vocational colleges for example, then it's it's really impactful and in your expert opinion have policymakers. Fully contemplated then the long term effects of this change, like what potential consequences, both positive and maybe negative, might we see in the years to come. Yeah I I mean you can see that there's it's kind of a a clean up of the industry as it were but to to bring in more integrity and what have you. Although some would argue they're not using real methods of integrity to do this by simply simply slashing the the the numbers. But yeah the the reality is that it's also going to give it's going to provide or create reputational damage for Australia if they keep on with these constant refusals because a lot of these. Actually, genuine applications. And the students themselves just cannot understand why all the agents who've helped them cannot understand why they're actually being refused with these cut and paste refusals we're seeing. Yeah. And do you see there's a way forward then for the government to actually collaborate with the universities, the industry stakeholders, to address, yes, their concerns, but also find the solutions that can benefit both migrants and then our broader Australian community as well? Well, I mean they can certainly there, there, there, there could be more consultation and transparency over what they're going to do. I know in Canada they've actually just come out and capped student numbers for a period of time and made it very specific as to what colleges etcetera are going to be able to accept how many numbers and so.