Another report has emerged claiming that international students from India are using Australia’s education system to gain backdoor permanent residency:
Vivek Gupta, an experienced career coach based in Sydney says too many foreign students, particularly from India, are making education choices based on their migration prospects.
“The Indian students mostly focus on which course would get them a PR (permanent residency) instead of what they actually want to study,” said Mr Gupta.
He added that this thought process was single-handedly responsible for pushing more and more students to settle for sub-optimal options that often do not match with their qualifications.
“Evidence shows that a majority of Indian students tend to opt for labour-intensive jobs, such as driving, cleaning, tradie jobs, working at cafes, etc.
A separate SBS report claims that international students view the temporary graduate (485) visa as a direct pathway to Australian permanent residency:
Described as one of the most “attractive and progressive” of its kind in the world, Australia’s temporary graduate visas, known as 485 visas, provide full work rights to international students and allow them to remain in Australia for 2 to 4 years following their studies.
A new report has found the 485 visa doesn’t play its part in helping the graduates to secure a job in the labour market. Instead, international graduates say 485 visas are widely perceived as a pathway to PR among the cohort.
Despite the evidently minor job leverage that 485 visas provide, the number of 485 visas holders has exploded over the past 3 years, topping 50,000 in 2018.
According to the Department of Home Affairs’ latest biannual student visa data, applications for graduate (485) visas tripled from 20,000 in 2014 to more than 60,000 in 2018:
Not surprisingly, the explosion in graduate (485) visas has been driven by Indians, whose application numbers surged by 37% in 2H 2018, dwarfing applications from other nations:
As noted previously by Bob Birrell from the Australian Population Research Institute, Indian international students are also behind the proliferation of so-called ‘ghost schools’, which have few staff and minimal attendance, and have been set-up purely to cater for those students seeking working rights and permanent residency:
Dr Bob Birrell said some interstate universities with “shopfronts” in Melbourne were offering cheap business and IT courses that provided minimum accreditation for a skilled visa application…
“It has little to do with the excellence of the education that’s offered here,” he said. “It seems to be effectively selling access to jobs and permanent residence.”
Home Affairs Department figures show Indians are the biggest applicants of the 485 student visa… Many Indian students afterwards apply for permanent residency, with more than 4000 given skilled independent visas onshore in 2016-17…
The rorting was recently uncovered in Canberra, where private colleges sprung up like mushrooms catering to international students, primarily from India, seeking permanent residency under the Territory’s migration scheme:
“When the subclass 190 visa popped up, the students started streaming in,” Min Gurung, marketing and sales manager from JP International College, in Mawson said. The college experienced an increase of 300-400 students in the past year, with many students moving to the ACT with their partners and young families…
Unity College in Belconnen experienced an almost two-fold increase in its student numbers to about 50…
Some operators of the colleges are reluctant to speak out, with one reporting his institution had about 100 students before July last year. In the past year, that number grew to about 300 students…
It’s believed up to eight colleges have opened in the past year and more applications could be in the works…
Australia is not alone, either. Earlier this month Canada’s Globe & Mail uncovered similar rorting by international students using private colleges to obtain work rights and permanent residency:
International students say Canadian private colleges use agents working on commission, both here and overseas, who persuade student recruits that paying tens of thousands of dollars in tuition is the easiest way to get into Canada and work toward becoming a permanent resident.
In some cases, recruits say they signed up for courses they weren’t interested in or didn’t plan to attend because all they really wanted was a student work permit so they could get a job as soon as they arrived…
[Some] did not even attend classes. Instead, they say they worked more hours than legally allowed while trying to get a Canadian employer to sponsor them for permanent residency…
Private colleges are big business. In the provinces with the most international students, Ontario now has 476 college and university campuses approved to enroll international students, while B.C. has 256. Most are for-profit companies, regulated by provincial education authorities. They are generally smaller than publicly funded colleges and universities, face less public scrutiny and have lower admission standards…
In short, tertiary institutions are effectively acting as ‘middle-men’ for the Great Australian Immigration Scam, clipping the ticket on international students using education visas as a backdoor for permanent residency.
The fast growing Indian cohort appears to be the key swindler and victim in this broken system.
