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Australia January 27, 2011 – On 16 December 2010, Chris Bowen, the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, and, Chris Evans, the Minister for Tertiary Education have formally announced a strategic review of the student visa programs and package of measures to ease the pressure on the international education sector and to attract foreign students to enter Australia.

The department has updated the policy on Certificate Level Vocational Education and Training courses to reflect amendments implemented with its sector regarding the certificate level courses. Effective on December 16, 2010, vocational education and training (VET-Subclass 572) visa applicants of Australia who are assessment level 4 may undertake a package of certificate level courses to reach requirements for the grant of a visa. Foreign students who wish to apply for Australian student visa can package up to 4 certificate level courses which total at least one year duration and one element is a certificate IV level course. On the previous students’ terms and conditions, it was a requirement that the only the certificate IV of at least one year duration.

With regards to prepaid formal boarding fees, the department implemented immediately a refine policy on the assessment of tuition and boarding fees by student visa processing officers. By this process, this surely encourage providers to separate the boarding component of payment prepaid by students from the tuition fees so that prepaid boarding payments can be counted towards the students’ cost of living requirements.

An in-depth new statistical publication on the student visa program will be available on the department’s website from January 2011 and this will be updated on a quarterly basis.

Starting April 2011, students’ assessment level will be reduced so that 38 countries will have their full assessment level lowered across one or more subclasses. This assessment levels are a risk management approach applied to all student visas to determine the amount of evidence visa Australia applicants need to supply and the level of scrutiny with their claims are assessed.