Outcome of Full Federal Court case - Minister for Immigration and Citizenship vs Kamal [2009] FCAFC 98

Before 21 August 2009, interpretation of Schedule 5A of the English proficiency provisions with theMigration Regulations 1994 required that English language test results be submitted with Student visa applications and that the test must have been sat no more than two years before the application was made.

In a unanimous decision of the Full Federal Court of Australia dated 21 August 2009 the Court concluded the Migration Regulations do not prevent a visa applicant from relying on the results of an International English Language Testing System (IELTS) test taken after the date of the Student visa application.

This decision does not affect Student visa applications already decided.

Student visa applicants (both onshore and offshore) may still be eligible for visa grant if they sit an IELTS test and receive the requisite score after date of application but before date of decision. However Student visa applicants are encouraged to have sat an IELTS test and achieved a requisite score prior to lodging an application

Student visa applicants will not be eligible for a visa if they provide an English language test that is older than two years prior to the date of application.

When a Student visa application is lodged, the Department can make a decision on the information at hand.

If the results from an IELTS test are not submitted with a Student visa application, applicants should indicate that they have booked an IELTS test within a reasonable timeframe and the date of that test.

Applicants seeking a visa in the Schools sector will not be affected by this recent decision as they are already able to sit an IELTS test after application.
Note: Special English language test waiver provisions continue to be in place for school applicants who are in the PRC (excluding the Hong Kong and Macau Special Administrative Regions).

AUSTRALIAN VISA EXPERTS

The Australian Government is being forced to take swift action to safeguard the lucrative  15.5 billion dollar education industry aimed at enticing foreign students to study in Australia with a view to gaining a qualification that will allow them to apply for permanent residence status. It is now a multi-million dollar industry and a lot is at stake if the government fails to address the three main issues of fraud, poor standards standards and overcharging by many of the colleges that have sprung up all over the place offering a wide range of courses and qualifications to overseas students in order to cash in on this market.

The Government is introducing stricter screening to scrutinize the ability of students to finance their livelihood in Australia once they arrive here. Students from certain countries like India, Mauritius, Brazil, Zimbabwe and Pakistan will be subject to this higher level screening of their applications. They will need to take part in face to face interviews and will no longer be able to rely 100% on online visa applications.

Genuine international students remain welcome. The Government wants genuine students to come to Australia but will not tolerate visa fraud. There must be a legitimate intention to study.

The Government will also be looking to weed out unscrupulous migrant agents that are abusing the e-Visa system using false documents.

Over the last few months Australia has attracted wide publicity over its treatment of certain foreign students and there have been complaints of some students being attacked, living in poverty and being exploited by dodgy education agents and migration agents who have taken their money simply to place them in low standard and illegitimate education institutions promising qualifications they cannot deliver or which will never be accepted as sufficient to support an application for permanent residence status after the student has completed his or her studies.

Under the new government rules prospective students will have to have $12,000 in the bank for living costs for each year of their study in addition to course fees.

Australia’s largest student market is China and the tougher rules are already being applied to students from China.

We continue to report these matters to you from our blog to keep reinforcing the need these days, more than ever, to retain the services of highly experienced and ethical migration agents who are prepared to give you up front written advice about your prospects of success and back that up with a guarantee.

AUSTRALIAN VISA EXPERTS

Overseas students, who complete a diploma or higher qualification in Australia can apply for a Subclass 856 (Employer Nomination) visa.

Such applications get the highest priority in processing so they are a very attractive alternative to applying for General Skilled Migration.

Of crucial significance to Subclass 856 visa applications by overseas students is the policy provision that overseas students with occupations on the Migration Occupations in Demand List may be eligible for a waiver of the 3 year work experience requirement .

Interested to know more about this?

Contact Australian Visa Experts from our website home page. Australian migration agent .

Welcome to our blog.

Let me start off my outlining the intentions of this blog.

We will be using this blog to keep you updated about what is happening with Migration government policy as it relates to the visa types that we specialize in - Business Visas, Skilled Migrant Visas, Sponsored temporary visas and Student Visas. Law and Policy is constantly changing as the Government grapples with a very complex economic situation and political demands and lobbying from both business and from unions who represent the interests of workers, many of whom are now losing their jobs.

In the pages of our website you will find a lot of general information the different visas that we are able to assist you with - but it would be impossible for us to keep you fully up to date in those web pages unless we were updating those pages every week. It is just not possible to have our web technicians constantly changing the main pages to include the latest changes or policy updates. SO WE WILL DO THIS ON THE BLOG.

Once you become a client of ours we will be advising you to keep reviewing our blog to stay up to date. If you are not yet our client but are thinking about seeking our assistance to see if you qualify for a visa and then to have us take care of the visa application for you - you can also use this Blog to keep up to date with what is happening with australian migration and visa law and policy.

Things have changed quite a bit since just 6 months ago when the government was publicly announcing that it was throwing its doors wide open to new migrants and encouraging overseas students to come here to study and then apply for permanent residence if they had obtained a skill that Australia needed.

Now Australia, like most other countries, is experiencing a Recession and thousands of local workers are losing their jobs. This has led the government to move to RESTRICT grants of temporary working visas and permanent skilled migrant visas to just those whose skills remain in short supply in Australian and hence are still in high demand.

In the current situation it is more important than ever for anyone wishing to come to Australian to work and/or wishing to migrate here to use the services of a highly skilled migration agent. The chances of self-prepared applications or ones prepared by less experienced agents being rejected by the Department of Immigration is higher than it was before. They are reviewing all applications very carefully to make sure that only the strongest applications are accepted and approved.

Finally, we wish to let you know that we will be regularly publishing interesting and informative ARTICLES about Australia, Australian Culture , places of interest, local events and of course on various aspects of Migration policy that we think that may be appealing to you. The purpose of this is to help you know more about Australia and what you might expect when you arrive here.

PLEASE DO NOT HESITATE TO LEAVE COMMENTS TO OUR VARIOUS BLOG POSTS. WE ENCOURAGE YOU TO DO THIS. We would love to hear your views and particularly we want you tell us what further information you would like us to publish on our blog to keep you well informed.

So again, we welcome you to this Blog and we hope we can be of service to you.