Commissions banned, students monitored under visa fraud crackdown

The changes have been triggered by reports, first raised in AFR Weekend, of widespread abuse of the visa system.

Thousands of newly arrived Indian students have been using loopholes in the system to abandon their courses at established universities to enrol at cheaper private colleges.

Universities are reporting sharp increases in the number of Indian students who either arrive in Australia but never step foot in their institution or abandon their course shortly after. One university said about 500 of its expected 1200 new enrolments from India for semester two last year either did not front up or jumped ship in the first six months.

Attendance to be monitored

Use of student visas as a back door to the jobs market is also rife, with some colleges merely shopfronts with little or no teaching and administration facilities. Under the changes, student attendance will be monitored.

Education agents have been actively poaching students in exchange for cash, while colleges and universities offer generous discounts for students to jump ship.

The changes come ahead of the release of a long-awaited report into the immigration and visa system by former Victorian police commissioner Christine Nixon.

The report, which has been seen by The Australian Financial Review, is damning of Australian Border Force’s capacity to “effectively investigate visa and migration fraud and the exploitation of temporary migrant workers”.

Mr Clare will beef up the powers of the two education regulators to oversee the changes. But insiders say the regulators, especially the Australian Skills Quality Agency that oversees vocational colleges, are toothless tigers.

Immigration expert Abul Rizvi questioned how effective some the changes would be, given some reforms already existed but had failed to capture rogue operators.

“We have used risk indicators to manage the student visa system since 2001. The change here would appear to be that the government will use them more widely and in particular by the education regulators,” he said.

“That is a good thing, but the key will be how. For example, if a provider has a very high-risk rating, what will the regulator do with that information? Does a very high-risk rating just lead to further monitoring/investigation or does it mean the provider’s ... licence is suspended or terminated?

“My fear is that the regulators’ response will remain weak – as it almost always has been – unless the government also uses some objective pass/fail measures.”

As well as students, the reforms will target bogus asylum seekers – who are often the same person.

Skills Minister Brendan O’Connor is expected to announce other reforms at the National Press Club on Tuesday.