Calls to cap international students ‘nonsensical’

There are still well over 100,000 people in the country on a 408 visa, which was created during the pandemic to give temporary migrants the right to work. Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil cancelled the visa in late August over concerns it was abused by dishonest migration agents and students as a back door to the jobs market.

Those people will depart within the next six to nine months unless they can get moved onto another visa.

A separate category that allows vocational students to stay in Australia for 18 months to study after graduation was attracting large numbers of Indians who were using visas as a back door to the jobs market.

In September, there were 193,000 people on post-study work rights – or 485 visas – 100,000 more that in 2019. A surge in vocational education enrolments is likely behind that figure.

Obvious scapegoat

Jake Foster, chief commercial officer with student recruitment firm AECC, said calls to cap student numbers were using students as an obvious scapegoat to a complex situation.

“There are only 3-4 per cent more international students studying in Australia in 2023 than there were in 2019, many of whom live in purpose-built student accommodation,” Mr Foster said.

“It took the Australian international education sector years to recover from COVID border closures; we need to be very careful of the messages we send to prospective international students considering Australia.”

While numbers have recovered dramatically, figures were just 23,847 higher than in 2019, he said, which was unlikely to be a major contributor to rental shortages.

Sensible steps

Abul Rizvi, a former deputy secretary of the Department of Immigration, said the government had already taken several sensible steps to tighten student migration policy, but they were not sufficient to get numbers down to a level that would be acceptable to the community at the next election.

“I suspect there are steps the government will announce in the forthcoming migration strategy to further tighten student policy,” Mr Rizvi said.

“But will those steps come soon enough to prevent another surge in students associated with the next academic year? I doubt it.”

However, he said capping student numbers would be an ineffective and blunt instrument that would result in the high-quality students Australia wants to attract going elsewhere because of delays in visa processing.

Phil Honeywood, chief executive of the International Education Association of Australia, said he was confident there would not be caps on incoming international students.

‘Range of measures’

“I understand that a range of measures is under consideration that will put the focus on quality over quantity,” Mr Honeywood said.

Rohan Pitchford, an economist with Australian National University, said calls for a cap on students were “nonsensical”.

“It also ignores the positive impact such students have in supply of labour to employers who are struggling to find workers at the minimum wage. This aspect is anti-inflationary,” he wrote on X.