Indian students especially from Punjab have an inclination of going to abroad to pursue higher studies. Most Indians prefer to go to Canada, UK and USA for the same but from a couple of months, Australia has also taken a top spot on their list. Large number of Indian students are applying in Australia especially after there has been a relaxation in the COVID travel restrictions.
The Australian Immigration Department has always had a good response towards students applying from India, but recently there has been a lot of rejection without any cut solid reason. As per the experts, 50% of applications have got rejected from Australia by the adoption of a very non-transparent system.
Immigration experts have stated that these rejections from Australia have come as a shocker to students because the country has never shown such a strange move in the last 30 years. They added further that the visas of students are getting rejected without any reason. Some of the intelligent students who scored 7-8 bands in IELTS were also turned down this year.
Australian education visa expert Chitresh Dhawan said that the application rejection matter has been taken up with the Australian High Commission. He said there is not a problem of visas getting rejected if objectivity is at stake but it feels like Australia has adopted a lottery method for accepting or rejecting the visas.
There is speculation that India has seen a massive application rejection because of various fraud cases that were reported in Australian Visa. Experts have stated that every student’s application must be scrutinized based on its merits.
Though the study expenses of studying in UK and Canada is also same as Australia but Australian government allows students to work along with studies. Not only that but they are also allowed to work for 2-4 years after their studies are completed and options for Permanent Residency are also available. The most important thing is that while in other countries students have to pay one-year advance fee and one-year living expenses, Australia just allows you to pay one-semester fee.
For the time being till this issue gets solved, experts have repeatedly requested the students to either apply in any other country or if applying for Australia then the agent chose must be licensed by the government.