Global Courant 2023-04-27 19:17:13
From July, a new limit of 24 hours per week will apply.
After the lifting of the work ceiling in 2022, there was a sharp increase in student visa applications from India, Nepal and Pakistan.
The Ministry of the Interior expressed concern that this increase was accompanied by an increase in the number of incomplete and fraudulent applications.
Home Secretary Clare O’Neil announced on Thursday that the government intends to review the requirements for issuing student visas to “ensure that students are actually here to study”.
“Instead of pretending that some students are here to study when they are actually here to work, we should look at creating good, capped, safe…pathways for employees in key industries, such as healthcare.”
The influx of students for work purposes has raised concerns that some may be exploited by employers or face mental health problems due to pressure from family members back home, urging them to work as much as 100 hours a week.
A member of parliament from the ruling Labor Party, Mr Julian Hill, co-founder of the Government’s Council for International Education, said access to unrestricted working hours was being exploited by international education agents facilitating visa applications.
“Agents in many parts of the world (are) passing off our costly student visa as some sort of cheap, low-cost work visa,” he told The Australian Financial Review.
Some low-cost colleges in Australia have also reportedly tried to extort students from universities, allowing them to work unlimited hours but pay lower tuition fees.
The managing director of the International Education Association of Australia, Mr Phil Honeywood, told a parliamentary inquiry into Australia’s international student sector that it had become a “Ponzi scheme”.
“Clearly in a global community coming out of Covid, this was manna from heaven for many struggling families in countries, especially in our region,” he told the study.
“Mum and Dad’s family business in Punjab or in Kathmandu may have suffered, and suddenly there is the situation where a western country, Australia, offers Australian dollars for unlimited labor rights.
“It’s become a bit of a Ponzi scheme that attracts young people with the wrong motivation.”
