SYDNEY, Feb 9 — Australia yesterday axed 20,000 migrant applications in a major overhaul aimed at clamping down on foreign students gaining permanent residency through courses such as hairdressing and cookery.
The country tightened its migration rules in favour of English speakers and professionals, saying the country needed more doctors and engineers.
Immigration Minister Chris Evans said about 20,000 overseas applicants would have their fees refunded at a cost of A$14 million (RM41.7 million), while new rules would require better English skills and target the “best and brightest”.
In a statement, Evans said: “The current points test puts an overseas student with a short-term vocational qualification gained in Australia ahead of a Harvard-educated environmental scientist.”
The measures are expected to dampen enrolment in Australian colleges by foreign students hoping to settle in the country.
It follows a sudden rise in Australia’s Indian population and an embarrassing rash of attacks on students from India.
Foreign students enrolled in courses for professions that are cut from the list will be given 18 months after graduation to find work in their field, or will have to leave Australia.
The new rules will also favour applicants who already have job offers over those who merely have qualifications or who are studying. Moreover, immigrant numbers in certain jobs could be capped for the first time.
The government has not identified which jobs. The new list will be made public in the middle of the year.
Australia continues to have a shortage of accountants, partly because many of the 40,000 accountants who immigrated in the past five years did not have the professional or language skills to find work, Evans said.
The new measures are likely to weigh on Australia’s large overseas education sector, which successfully targeted Asian students to become the country’s fourth largest earner of foreign money.
The sector has been hit by widespread allegations of shoddy practice and visa scams by migration agents, with several institutions forced to close last year.
Monash University social scientist Andrew Markus, an expert on migration policy, said student enrollments would fall because more than 70 per cent of foreign students in Australia planned to settle here permanently.
Foreign student numbers in Australia have gone from 150,000 in 2002 to almost 400,000 last year, with India recently overtaking China as the largest source of applicants. Australia attracted some 117,000 Indian students in the year to October.
Other major source countries include China, South Korea, Nepal, Thailand and Brazil.
Meanwhile, Britain is tightening its rules on student visas to prevent people from flouting the rules and working illegally.
The changes — which are effective immediately — won’t stop genuine students from travelling to Britain to study but will close an avenue that has been exploited.
Under the new rules, those from outside the European Union who come to Britain for short courses — less than six months — can no longer bring their dependents. A higher standard of English will also be required. — Agencies
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