Knight review lifts visa requirements for overseas students

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Knight review lifts visa requirements for overseas students

• JOHN ROSS
• From:The Australian
• September 22, 2011 12:03PM
  

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Former Sydney 2000 Olympics minister Michael Knight. Photo: Brett Costello. Source: The Daily Telegraph

ONEROUS visa requirements for overseas higher education students will be lifted, and a two- to four-year post-study work visa will be introduced for foreign university graduates, under key recommendations from the Knight review of the student visa program.

But universities will have to wait about a year for the changes, which are scheduled to apply from second semester next year.

And vocational training colleges will have to wait on a second review, also scheduled next year, before they see major changes to visa processing arrangements for their own international students.

Student visa arrangements, along with the strong Australian dollar and tighter skilled migration rules, are seen as a key factor behind a dramatic plunge in overseas student numbers.

So far vocational and English language colleges have felt the biggest impacts, with university enrolments little changed.

Under the new rules for universities, all students will be treated as 'low risk'.

This will make visa processing faster and easier by reducing the amount of money they need in order to demonstrate that they have the financial capacity to live and work in Australia, and eliminating the need for them to sit language tests for visa purposes.

Vocational and English language colleges will see some benefit from other changes scheduled next year, including reduced financial capacity requirements for their students.

This would see a reduction of up to $36,000 in the amount of money students from 'high risk' countries which include the key markets of China and India are required to deposit in Australian government-sanctioned bank accounts before they can apply for visas.

The changes will also eliminate rules which forced students to meet minimum English language requirements before they could come to Australia to study English.

The government this morning accepted all 41 recommendations in the review by former Sydney Olympics Minister Michael Knight.