THE CURRENT SCENARIO .Ajay Unni is a busy man. The Indian-born Sydney representative of the Federation of Indian Students (FISA) has been fielding calls all day from bewildered students, distraught at the sudden closure of the city’s Sterling College (on July 28). About 500 students, mainly Indians, who were undertaking vocational courses in hairdressing, cookery, community development and accounting, have been affected. Informs Unni, “Students arrived at the college to find it closed and are now left in the lurch.” Some, including Pinky Minhas, 28, were close to graduating. In her interview to a local newspaper, The Sydney Morning Herald, Minhas said, “There’s nothing. The money is wasted, our future is going down.” Affected students will now be placed in another college, where they will be able to finish their courses under an industry agreement. But the shutdown of Sterling College is not an isolated case; it is the latest in a string of controversies concerning Indian students in the land Down Under. Assaults, public protests by Indians, perceived lacklustre policing, unscrupulous migration agents and substandard colleges, have all contributed towards a growing unease about education in Australia.
This situation may be about to get worse. In a recent report, Dr Bob Birrell, an academician at the country’s Monash University, warned of a ‘powder keg situation’ due to changes in Australia’s migration laws. Announced by the Australian government late last year, the changes make it more difficult for overseas students, who undertake vocational-training courses to qualify for permanent residency.
Around 90,000 Indian students have flocked to Australia’s educational institutes over the past few years, and now call it home. A huge swell in student numbers has occurred in the vocational-skills training field - courses run by private companies or state-run TAFE colleges that provide trade or technical skills - where threequarters of the Indian student body are being educated. The number of enrollments to Australian institutes by Indian students has tripled from 4359 in 2002 to 12,102 in 2008. However, this change has been even more dramatic in the training sector - from less than 1000 from 2002 to 2004 to almost 3000 in 2005, 7400 in 2006, 18,600 in 2007 and 32,771 in 2008.
The surge in the number of Indian students applying to institutes in Australia occurred after the government made changes to its migration laws in 2001 that made it easier for students trained in designated skilled areas to secure permanent residency. The Migration Occupations in Demand includes hairdressers, cooks and community development workers. “For an increasing minority, the point of study in Australia is to gain permanent residency,” says Dr Birrell. “Whatever the motive, those seeking permanent residence will find that the migration selection landscape has changed. Just as the number of students pursuing their courses, or those who have recently completed their courses, reaches a peak, the doors for former overseas students who are general skilled migrants are now closing.” Since the start of this year, Australia’s Immigration Department has stopped processing applications of migrants with general skills, who do not have at least a year-long work experience in the field. The department instead, is focusing on workers sponsored by private companies or government agencies, and this change is set to have a profound effect on the number of Indians/ non-nationals who will actually receive permanent residency.
WHO IS TO BLAME?
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FISA founder Gautam Gupta, 24, a former student from Chandigrah, says the Australian Government is at fault for the explosion in student numbers. “Most of the training courses are made to suit the Australian criteria. Take, for instance, a course in commercial cookery. The training can prove to be useful only for someone who stays back in Australia. In such a situation, a student is bound to feel cheated, when halfway through the course, the government changes its mind and says, ‘We don’t need you anymore’. Who is going to pay AU $40,000 (INR 1.59 million) only to become a hairdresser?” Adds Unni, “A number of universities and educational institutes have been luring students on the pretext of permanent residency in Australia; that is the only goal of most students pursuing an education there.”
Many believe the problem lies at the start of the chain, with misleading advertisements and aggressive recruiting. The burgeoning discontentment and indecisiveness can ultimately lead to existential neurosis, which mimics clinical depression. Advertisements and education agents label courses ‘permanent residency courses’ and ‘guarantee’ work-experience hours and job placements. Students are tricked into pursuing such courses that claim there would be people waiting for them at the airport to offer them jobs, that job-seeking would be easy, and migration paperwork would be a breeze. WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE?
The Australian Council for Private Education and Training announced last week, it would create a register for education agents overseas in a bid to stamp out rogue agents. In a recently made statement, CEO Andrew Smith said, “Education agents play an important role in providing information to students, but it is critical that students know where to find reliable, trustworthy agents who meet the highest standards, in order to make informed decisions about their studies.” In the past, anecdotal reports suggest the government has failed to act on substandard education providers, in a bid to stop the disruptive closures, such as Sydney’s Sterling College and two others that closed last week. They vow now, they will act.
The peak body for migration agents is also calling for a crackdown. Says Maurene Horder,
business services directory CEO, Migration Institute of Australia, “We’ve been asking the government to sort out problems with education agents and illegal or unscrupulous operators for an extended period of time. The announcement that education agents will have to register is a first step, but doesn’t go far enough in reforming the sector.”
Since the Indian student protests erupted in recent months, the Australian government has launched a blitzkrieg of activity to quell the anger and introduce changes - but not to migration laws. All levels of government have been tasked with finding solutions - a security hotline was established and there are increasing links between students and government. India has been especially targeted. In a recent visit to New Delhi, Immigration Minister, Chris Evans, announced a Working Group on migration issues would meet for the first time this month, but reiterated the government’s stance on the migration policy, when he said, “A key challenge for the Australian government remains to communicate clearly that there is no automatic link between studying in Australia and getting access to permanent residency.” Highlighting the links between the countries (India is now the highest source of skilled migrants to Australia and the secondhighest source of temporary business visas), he announced another review of the skills list that is critical to the chances of Indian students’ success in gaining permanent residency. This list is expected to be completed by October.
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PARTING SHOT Concludes Gupta, “Students should be extremely cautious while applying for a course, as there are chances they might end up being exploited and cheated. They should understand that Australia is a very beautiful country, but it is not a bed of roses.”
