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Australian Government Adopts Student-Visa Reforms

September 22, 2011, 10:52 am

The Australian government adopted Thursday proposals to improve the country’s student-visa program. The recommendations were made in June by an independent commission appointed to respond to concerns that the visa system had become overly restrictive, harming Australia’s ability to compete for international students.  The changes are expected to result in faster processing times for visa applications for university students; lower financial requirements for vocational-education students from countries such as India and China who are considered “high risk” for immigration; and opportunities for students with bachelor’s degrees or higher to work for up to four years after graduation.  Higher-education groups praised the government’s decision, saying they would help maintain the sector’s international competitiveness.

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  • http://twitter.com/jbraaten Jill Braaten

    Opportunity…

  • nacrandell

    “Law-school deans and professors, meeting in New York this weekend for the Future Ed 3 conference, invoked software and distance learning as tools that can rescue legal education from classroom doldrums…”

    Isn’t that nice, developing an entertaining software system for the classroom that will reduce the cost of law school for the few and increase enrollment at a time when big firms have laid off attorneys, implemented pay freezes or reductions, and reduced hiring.

    This has little to do with legal education ad more to do with ‘selling’ degress. Not all law schools are $50,000.00 per year and where would the online apps lead to – online doctors? Call me a traditionalist, but, I prefer my doctors to have attended school in the Caribbean Islands.

  • austinbarry

    I can remember visiting Project Pericles at Harvard Law School which was working on an expert system for routine legal processing. One other thing I remember were a Dragons Lair type video-disk simulation of a trial (where the student/player had to object to testimony and give a reason). This was in 1986 (back when “word processing” was relatively new). I guess technology doesn’t advance at the same speed in all fields.

  • jabberwocky12

    I’m all in favor of online learning; I just hope that this “rescue” is not aimed at merely increasing student numbers and thereby save tons of cash. The idea being that it makes no material difference whether you have 100 students or 1,000 students or even 10,000 on a course – just develop the course notes and distribute them electronically, and call it education.

    Where that has been attempted, it has usually resulted in “canned” courses broadcasting information, with an idea of filling the pitchers with information to be vomited back out at the end of the semester.

    The aim should be education, not financial saving to make up for shortfalls resulting from other bad business decisions.

  • http://hiresteve.com/ Steve Foerster

    Awareness of how far behind law schools are in online education doesn’t really matter when the ABA is hellbent on ensuring that they never accredit a JD offered by distance learning.

  • xmckeon

    @jabberwocky12 – I don’t think they’re necessarily looking to create online courses, there are great opportunities to bring technology into the classroom as an aid to further enhance the experience. Working at a law school, while attending graduate school, I’ve noticed how much less technology is integrated into the classroom in law schools. There’s great potential to engage students online as well as offline, without initially requiring online participation, the students will inevitably migrate online for discussion, while bringing topics and arguments back to the classroom (as one example).

  • bstorck

    I agree with any posted snicker or hint of skepticism on this point and am FAR more interested in how law schools could possibly be so far behind the curve on everything BUT increasing record enrollments, tuition costs, and further prolifigation of JD programs during the worst legal job market in decades. The ABA and LSAC have shown wanton recklessness to make their piles of hay; now let another graduating class can pay.

  • vatican

    Let’s start with training the visa officers around the world to stop asking stupid interview questions like “Where in Australia is this university you are going to?”, “Tell me about the courses that you’ll be doing in your program”, and “Where in the city is this university?”  

    “High risk” for immigration?  Are we back to the White Australia policy?  I thought that policy was scrapped decades ago.  The Australian Immigration has ways to track people through cell phone applications (very popular among overseas students), bank accounts (they need their passports to open accounts), through the Australian Tax Office, and through diplomatic channels by cooperating with the Chinese and Indian embassies.  So come on, this is a politically loaded statement!  Get real for once!

  • gavin_moodie

    Australian immigration’s testing of prospective international students has nothing to do with a return to the white Australia policy since Australia admits thousands of immigrants and refugees each year from diverse ethnic backgrounds.  The Australian Government wishes to distinguish between those it grants visas for temporary stays as tourists, visitors or students and those it grants visas for longer term or potentially permanent residence as immigrants or refugees.  This basic distinction is made by all countries.

    The Australian government is not relaxing student visa requirements for students seeking to study at institutions other than accredited universities.  This has been criticised by representatives of 2 year colleges and of 4 year colleges which aren’t accredited universities.

    However, the relaxed visa requirements apply to English language and other non university programs that are offered jointly – ‘packaged’ – with a baccalaureate offered by an accredited university.  These packaged pathway programs are already quite common in Australian post compulsory education and I expect them to expand further.

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