AUSTRALIA: STUDENT NEW VISA RULES...!

Visa to Australia, students should provide more evidence

Prospective students from Sri Lanka must give extra evidence proving their application to obtain a student visa to Australia, the Australian Visa Bureau said.

As a result of a review into the student visa programme which came into effect on Monday, the Australian Government has made legislative changes to the Assessment Levels, which student visa applications are assessed against.

The changes mean the Assessment Levels in 52 countries have been amended. All applications for student visas from nationals in these countries are now subject to these amendments. All applications which were already being processed before this date will not be affected by the changes. As part of the changes, the immigration risk of 43 countries has been lowered, including China, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman and Brazil, meaning they now have to provide less evidence to support their Australian student visa applications.

Prospective overseas students from India, Jordan, Zimbabwe, Colombia, Egypt, Ghana, Nigeria, Sri Lanka and Romania will now have to give extra evidence proving their application is legitimate and they have the capacity to support themselves financially.

According to Australian Visa Bureau, 392,000 international students were enrolled as Australian educational students in the past year, which is a 20 per cent increase on the year before. Although the Department of Immigration and Citizenship has now made it harder for Indian students to get a student visa, the numbers of Indian students in Australia before the immigration changes increased by 55 per cent. The numbers from China and Nepal continue to grow, while the Hong Kong, Japanese and Taiwan student markets are declining, the Australian Visa Bureau said.