As the impact of the international student caps on our universities dominates the headlines, spare a thought for the high quality private VET providers who have never been involved in fraudulent activities or student exploitation. The best of them are decent, kind, dedicated entrepreneurs who have a passion for education.

Sadly they too are the collateral damage in the newly announced student visa caps – and the impact on their operations will be much more extreme than on any of our universities or TAFE Institutes.

While I personally agree with the government’s intention that tertiary education providers who teach international students should aim for a mix of domestic and international students (and we could debate what the ‘right’ mix of students should be), the fact is that it has never been an issue for private providers to operate institutions that focus exclusively (or almost exclusively) on educating international students.

Until now…

A total of 94,500 new international students will be able to enrol in VET next year (and 4,000 of those places will be reserved for providers with CRICOS applications currently under processing – they will get a cap of 30 students each – meaning that the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations is expecting more than 130 new CRICOS VET providers to be approved in 2025)…

The remaining places will be allocated as follows:

• specialist international VET providers (ie those with 80% or more international students) have collectively been given 61,505 new students
• non-specialist providers (ie under 80% of their students are internationals) will get a combined total of 18,953 new commencements
• TAFEs will get 5,482 new commencements, and
• new CRICOS providers which have only recently been registered will be allocated a total of 4,560 new commencements.

It is the first category where we are already starting to see staff laid off and in one case I heard of yesterday, a senior executive admitted to hospital following a nervous breakdown – after their institute was given a cap which is just 15% of their normal student numbers (ie their approved CRICOS capacity).

The reason why the caps are so damaging to VET providers is that in VET ‘new students’ are almost the same as ‘total’ students in any given year because many VET courses are only ~12 months long.

The institution above had only recently taken out a 10 year lease on 4 new floors in the CBD of one of our capital cities and had invested millions in a high class fitout.

This institution is not a ghost college. It’s not an elite university with extensive financial reserves it can draw on – but it is an employer and a tenant in a capital city where landlords are finding it hard to get offices leased.

After receiving their student cap late last week, the next day this institution immediately had to make some of their staff redundant.

This is not a ‘shonk’ operating a ghost college.

It is an entrepreneur offering quality education to genuine students coming to Australia to learn new skills.

Sadly, of course, this institution is not alone…

While private higher education providers typically offer longer programs of study than VET providers, speaking before the Senate Committee hearing into the ESOS legislation in Sydney on Friday, Stephen Nagle from Holmes Institute had the courage to share the following about the impact of the caps on his institution:

Other details that we know, about the impact on private providers include:

ASX-listed Edu Holdings notified the ASX on Tuesday of the impact of the caps on their VET provide, Australian Learning Group. They have been given a cap of 447 new international VET students which is approximately half of the new students they enrolled in 2023 (-51%) and a -57% reduction on total new students enrolled this year. However, because their students typically undertake a two-year program “the decline is likely to be gradual”. Their higher education provider, Ikon Institute, had previously been given a cap for 2025 of 200 new international higher education students (which is down on the 347 new students they enrolled in 2023 and the 784 new commencements YTD in 2024). They noted that they “expected to benefit from their progressive enrolment growth during FY24 and its 3-4 year average study duration for a number of years.”

NextEd Group is another ASX-listed education organisation educating international VET and higher education students. They have a combined CRICOS capacity across their colleges of almost 27,000 students and in February and April 2024 opened new campuses in Adelaide and the Gold Coast. They have been given a cap for their VET operations of 1,139 for 2025 which is down on the 2,078 new commencing international VET students they enrolled in 2023 and the YTD 2,636 in 2024. (They have also advised that the cap for their higher education provider, Academy of Interactive Technology, will be 100 students which is below their 2023 new international student enrolments of 172, but above their YTD 2024 new international students of just 72.)

Other CRICOS VET providers I am aware of have been given the following caps relative to their CRICOS capacity. (Note that I have deliberately not given precise figures to avoid them being identified. It is for them to decide when/if they wish to share the details):

• Cap <40 new students, CRICOS capacity approx. 800 students
• Cap: <200 new students, CRICOS capacity approx. 400 students
• Cap: <400 new students, CRICOS capacity approx. 1,200 students

Against this backdrop I was unsurprised to learn that an online meeting on Monday to discuss the caps attracted more than 250 people, and that providers are exploring the possibility of legal action…

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2025 cap allocations for VET

The initial government announcement stated that out of all the new spaces available to international students under the NPL, the VET sector is to receive 95,000, compared with 145,000 for public universities and 30,000 for other universities and non-university providers.
 
On Friday night last week, individual private VET colleges received letters informing them how many spaces they would receive out of that total VET allowance. Many of those providers will be devastated by their allocations. Some have been informed they can receive less than half the number of new students they welcomed in 2023.

Quality providers see allocations slashed

Many of the providers whose allocations are particularly low are schools that have committed the most to quality assurance and sustainable recruiting and enrolment management. As reported in , one college has been told that its new student allocation would be three spaces, and said: “This makes all our investment in becoming , as well as investing in all the infrastructure and systems in compliance with legal requirements a complete waste of time and resources.”

Closures and job losses are imminent

Troy Williams, the chief executive of the Independent Tertiary Education Council Australia (ITECA), which is the peak body representing independent higher education, vocational education, and skills training providers, said:

“College closures are now inevitable, and ITECA members lay the blame squarely at the feet of Australian Government politicians responsible for international education policy.”

Mr Williams believes up to 300 independent colleges will close and noted: “Their employees will lose their jobs, as will other employees in colleges that will have to scale down to survive …. There is a widespread and chilling belief within the ITECA membership that Australian Government politicians simply do not care about the livelihoods they are destroying.”

Many of the colleges at risk of closing due to the NPL deliver programmes that provide students with the skills most needed by the Australian economy – such as aviation, aged care and healthcare.

The Koala News spoke with several college representatives who made it clear just how drastically their commencements will fall in 2025. One exclaimed: “We had more than 50% domestic students in 2023, and in 2024, we had 350 new commencements in VET Intl. We have been given a cap of 169!”.

Australian Securities Exchange-listed EDU Holdings, which runs ALG vocational schools in Brisbane, Melbourne, and Sydney, received 447 new international student commencements – which amounts to a 51% cut compared with 2023 and about a 57% decline from projected 2024 commencements.

The strong link between commencements and enrolments in the VET sector

Claire Field of Claire Field & Associates (a firm that offers strategic support to Australian institutions across the tertiary education sector), explains why the NPL is so crushing for VET providers:

“The reason why the caps are so damaging to VET providers is that in VET ‘new students’ are almost the same as ‘total’ students in any given year because many VET course are only ~12 months long.”

Ms Field said that the devastation is such that “a senior executive was admitted to hospital following a nervous breakdown – after their institute was given a cap which is just 15% of their normal student numbers (i.e., their approved CRICOS capacity).”

The English-language sector has also been hit

The NPL is not meant to affect the English-language sector (ELICOS), but nevertheless it has because some ELICOS providers also deliver vocational programming.

Ian Aird, CEO of English Australia, wrote on :

“English Australia has already spoken with a number of member colleges who also deliver vocational programmes. For some, these enrolment caps for 2025 are devastating. Right now, our chief concern is the people badly impacted. We are hearing that in some cases the limits are so bad as to mean imminent campus and college closures, significant job losses, and students ejected with nowhere to go. So soon after the COVID border closures caused devastation, after the massive effort to survive and bounce back, we know this will be not just a financial blow. This is emotionally devastating.”

What is to be done?

According to ITECA, “the Australian Government needs to rethink its approach to consider the impact on the sector more completely, restoring an evidence-based approach to policymaking.”

In the meantime, CEO Troy Williams says:

“The most sensible thing to do, given the proximity to the 2025 academic year, would be to delay the commencement of the caps for at least six months. This allows the Australian Government to be transparent in its methodology and develop a sustainable approach that supports quality [Registered Training Organisations] and the people they employ.”

Billions at stake

In 2023, international students contributed AUD$41 billion to the Australian economy. Given that 57% of all international student enrolments in Australia in 2023 were in private VET providers, the combined impact of drastically reduced new student commencements and hundreds of NPL-related institutional closures may remove billions of dollars from the economy going forward.

For additional background, please see:

• “Australia announces cap on student commencements for 2025”
• “Recent policy changes slowing student interest in the UK, Canada, and Australia”
• “What is the cost of policy intended to reduce international student flows?�Ũ�Ĩ&�Բ�����;

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“Subject to the passage of legislation before the Parliament, [the government] will set a National Planning Level (NPL) for new international student commencements of 270,000 for calendar year 2025.”

The NPL – i.e., a cap on new international students coming to Australia – will be allocated across the higher education and vocational education sectors and its aim is to constrain international commencements to pre-pandemic levels. The government says the cap will help to restore the social licence of the industry and ensure that growth is better managed.
 
clarifies what is meant by a “new international student commencement”: “An international student will count as a new overseas student commencement when they are onshore and start their first non-exempt course at their first provider. This includes each time the student changes into a non-exempt course at a different provider.” (Editor’s note: New rules around “visa hopping” mean that there will only be a small number of students who are eligible to change courses.)

Some sub-sectors will be excluded from the NPL:

• Schools
• Higher degree by research programmes
• Standalone English-language providers (ELICOS)
• Non-award programmes

Also excluded from the cap are “Australian Government-sponsored scholars, students that are part of an Australian transnational education arrangement or twinning arrangement, key partner foreign government scholarship holders, and students from the Pacific and Timor-Leste.”

Assuming that the pending legislative amendments are passed by the Australian parliament, the NPL will come into effect in January 2025.

How will the cap be distributed?

Just over half of the new international students anticipated under the cap will enrol in public universities, with 145,000 international commencements in 2025 earmarked for this sub-sector. This overall cap is said to be roughly equivalent to the number of higher education commencements in 2023. However, a government media release explains, “[Individual institutional caps] will be outlined in an International Student Profile (ISP). Publicly funded universities have been provided with their indicative ISPs…In developing ISPs, a number of factors have been considered based on data provided by universities, including recent levels of new international student commencements and the concentration of international enrolments in their onshore student cohorts.”

In other words, individual universities with higher concentrations of foreign students, or that have grown more quickly in recent years, could receive lower cap allocations. While those with lower proportions of international enrolment may receive additional student spaces under the NPL.

A post-announcement analysis from Australian National University Professor elaborates on the cap formula for universities: “The caps have been calculated with 2019 pre-pandemic enrolments at each public university as their base. For universities who increased their enrolments of international students between 2019 and 2023 a formula applies, depending on their ‘international concentration.’ This is based on the percentage of their enrolments in Australian campuses who are international students.

Universities with low concentrations of international students can have all their growth to 2023 included in their 2025 cap. However universities with concentrations above 37% will get to keep only 50% of their growth.

This is likely to affect the more prestigious universities the most. This includes Group of Eight universities, such as the University of Sydney, the University of Melbourne, the University of Queensland and the Australian National University. They will have to cut their commencing student intakes in 2025 compared with 2023 and 2024.”

Outside of the publicly funded universities, about 30,000 of the student spaces available under the cap will be given to other universities and non-university providers and about 95,000 will go to the VET sector. The government adds: “Providers with a higher ratio of international students will receive a lower allocation, encouraging them to diversify their student base.”

In percentage terms, that cap allocation for the VET sector appears to represent a more severe reduction from 2023 levels, whereas the bigger story for higher education is the cap effect of re-allocating those student places from Group of Eight universities to other institutions, as outlined in the cap formula above.

The impact of that model, however, could be severe. Professor Norton adds, “The government has jumped ahead of its legal authority here because the process of recruiting and enrolling international students for next year is already well underway. Education providers need to know how many students they can take…While fairer visa processing will help some education providers increase their enrolments, capping popular universities below student demand won’t necessarily help other universities in Australia.

Few students who want to attend high-prestige universities or want to live in large cities will go to lower prestige or regional universities instead. They just won’t come to Australia.”

What does the cap replace?

Speaking at the AFR Higher Education Summit in Sydney last week, Minister of Education Jason Clare confirmed that the forthcoming NPL will replace Ministerial Directive 107, an immigration framework that classified Australian institutions into different risk levels and offered preferential treatment to “low-risk” institutions. The directive also triggered a significant spike in visa rejection rates for students from some countries.

“Ministerial Direction 107 categorises universities into three different categories and affects the speed at which your visas are processed based on risk,” said Minister Clare at the AFR Summit. “It means that some universities have more students today than they had last year. It means a number of universities have significantly less. It also means that the time it’s taken to process a visa for a university has taken longer in the case of universities that are in that second and third category…A lot of universities have made the point to me that that’s affected their bottom line. It’s affected the way international students see us as a country, if it’s taken a long time to get a visa or they’ve been rejected, and I’ve sought a better way to provide more certainty for them about the number of students they can educate each year and process those visas up to that level quicker.”

In , Universities Australia Chair Professor David Lloyd puts some numbers on that impact, explaining that “visa grants in higher education are down 23% on last year, causing [an] AUD$4.3 billion hit to the economy and putting 14,000 jobs in our sector at risk.”

Prof Lloyd, along with other university and VET leaders, is outraged that the government sees fit to introduce the NPL following the damage inflicted by Directive 107. He writes: “Even without legislated powers to limit international student numbers, the Government has already taken a sledgehammer to the international education sector.”

Prof Lloyd points out what is at stake:

“Every dollar from overseas students is reinvested back into Australia’s universities. Having fewer students here will only widen the funding gap at a time universities need greater support.

There will also be significant flow-on effects for other sectors of the economy that rely heavily on international students.

International students accounted for more than half of Australia’s GDP growth last year, almost singlehandedly saving the nation from recession. The sector is our second biggest export behind mining, worth almost AUD$50 billion to our economy and supporting around 250,000 jobs.”

Group of Eight (Go8) Chief Executive Vicki Thomson , in which she lambastes both the government’s Ministerial Directive 107 and the new NPL cap:

“Today the Federal Government announced that it intends recklessly to proceed with international student caps – introducing cuts to Go8 members who do the heavy lifting in research, education as well as underpinning Australia’s global reputation as a high-quality international education provider.

As such, the Group of Eight (Go8) remains implacably opposed to international student caps for the damage they will do to the sector and the nation.

We saw yesterday at the Senate inquiry that there is no economic modelling on the impact of caps, and this has not changed with today’s announcement of a National Planning Level target of 270,000 for international education. This policy was bad yesterday and it is bad today – the unexplained number gives us no comfort.

What has changed is the Government today trying to steamroll the sector into accepting detailed caps before a clearly sceptical Senate has passed judgement on the ill-conceived legislation that enables these enrolment limits.

In doing so, the Government has confused the issues even further and increased the distrust of the sector in its capability to manage this vital AUD$48 billion export industry.

The Government has essentially responded to one reckless policy folly, Ministerial Direction 107, with another – punishing the Universities that have proven to be the most popular for the very best global students.

Tellingly, the Minister also confirmed that Ministerial Direction 107 has significantly damaged the global reputation of Australia’s international education sector. The introduction of caps will compound this damage.”

reports that The University of Melbourne has received its indicative cap and is studying its financial implications. The university’s vice-chancellor, Professor Duncan Maskell, said: “The cap on international students will have detrimental consequences for our University, the higher education sector generally, and the nation for years to come.”

For additional background, please see:

• “Recent policy changes slowing student interest in the UK, Canada, and Australia”
• “Australia: Peak bodies lobby strongly against pending legislation during Senate hearing”
• “What is the cost of policy intended to reduce international student flows?”

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English-language training sector posts big gains

In total, 59,305 students were enrolled across all sectors from January-August 2023, about half of whom were attending university (27,535, up 15% on 2022). The second largest subsector was schools, up 114% to 12,660, followed by the English-language training sector, which posted massive growth of 347% for a total of 7,000 students.

The strengthening performance of the ELT sector is a positive indicator of future trends for universities and other tertiary-level educators, as many ELT graduates go on to enrol in higher education having achieved a stronger command of the English language.

Numbers were also up by 32% to 6,560 for Te Pūkenga, a centralised establishment specialising in skills and technology training that is in the process of being “disestablished.” It will be replaced with eight to 10 institutions with their own autonomy in the next several months with an aim of better serving the needs of local communities.

Private Training Establishments (PTEs) recorded growth of 13% to 5,670.

Recovery still underway but the trend is positive

Overall, numbers are still down significantly from 2019 when the total foreign enrolment in the country was 115,705, but the trajectory is positive and New Zealand educators are aiming to base their recovery on recruiting from a more diverse mix of student source markets.

Minister Simmonds said:

“Over 59,000 enrolments, in just eight months, confirms that international students continue to find New Zealand an attractive education destination. And for the university sector with 27,535 students enrolled, where a proportion of learners may study for a number of years, there is a solid base of students from which to grow. It is a Government priority to diversify our recruitment efforts for international students with the aim of reaching a broader spectrum of countries.”

Currently, China contributes 36% of enrolments, followed by India (10%), Japan (10%), South Korea (5%), and Thailand (4%).

New Zealand’s position strengthens amid weakening demand for Australia, Canada, and UK

The recovery of New Zealand’s international education sector may be bolstered by policy changes in leading competitor countries Australia, Canada, and UK. New policies in those countries are already causing many international students to reassess their study plans. Nearly half of 2,500 prospective students in 67 countries surveyed by IDP in January 2024 are reconsidering or unsure of their plans to study in the UK, and significant proportions are also hesitating to go to Australia (47%) and Canada (43%).

For additional background, please see:

• “New Zealand: Foreign enrolments climbed steadily through 2023 but full recovery will take years”

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The report offers seven broad findings, including Finding #3, which sets out that, “The regulation of education agents must be considered, and the regulation of education providers strengthened to stop the exploitation of the system”.

“Approximately 75% of international students obtain the assistance of an education agent (many of whom are based overseas) for research, enrolling, and applying for a visa in Australia,” explains the report. “While education agents are recognised as having an important role in recruiting overseas students for the Australian market, the regulators currently play no part in the supervision of agents.”

“Instead, the regulatory onus is placed on education providers. Registered education providers must ensure the agents they deal with do not engage in false or misleading conduct, and providers must take corrective action or terminate their relationship with an agent who engages in any unethical recruitment practices.”

This section of the report also highlights issues within the vocational education and training (VET) sector in particular.

“Significant challenges are also recognised, particularly in the VET sector, with regard to non-genuine providers and collusion between providers and their agents. There are currently around 800 VET providers of international education. The VET sector is more dispersed, and there is more churn with providers entering and exiting the market. The volume of VET providers necessitates [sector regulatory authority Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA)] risk-based regulatory approach, and while delivery to international students including detection and deterrence of non-genuine providers has been identified as one of ASQA’s regulatory 2022/23 risk priorities, ASQA’s primary focus is on achieving quality education outcomes rather than deterring and disrupting visa exploitation.”

Speaking at the National Press Club on 3 October 2023, Minister for Skills and Training Brendan O’Connor was quick to point out that these concerns are concentrated with a small group of VET providers, numbering “more than 12 but less than 100”.

Following on from anti-fraud measures announced last month to end concurrent Confirmations of Enrolments (COEs) and to scrap the Pandemic Event Visa, the Australian government has made a series of announcements this week in a further response to the findings of the Nixon report.

Transfer commissions and agent ownership to be banned

In a joint announcement on 2 October 2023, the Minister for Education Jason Clare, Minister for Skills and Training Brendan O’Connor, and Minister for Home Affairs Clare O’Neil set out .

First, the ministers announced a prohibition on agent commissions on student transfers between providers in Australia “to remove incentives for unscrupulous agents and providers to ‘poach’ students”.

Second, they explained that the government will shortly amend the Education Services for Overseas Students Act (ESOS) to explicitly “prevent cross-ownership of businesses between education providers and education agents”.

Finally, the ministers also described plans for a strengthened monitoring framework to better ensure compliance on the part of education providers, especially with regard identified “risk indicators” such as tracking and reporting student attendance. (This reflects that poor or non-attendance is a risk factor for fraud that was clearly identified in the Nixon report.)

The ministers added that, “Providers will be given greater access to agent performance data such as student completion rates and visa rejection rates. These benchmarks will help providers choose quality education agents as partners.”

Minister Clare added that, “The Nixon Review identified the need to increase monitoring and compliance in the international education sector and the Government is responding. The Government will outline further measures to crack down on dodgy and unscrupulous players in the international education sector in the next few days.”

A new integrity monitoring unit for VET

Indeed, the very next day, Minister O’Connor announced a “compliance blitz” targeted to the VET sector. In his , the minister set out plans for a new Integrity Unit within ASQA. Backed by AUS$38 million new funding, which is roughly equivalent to 60% of ASQA’a current budget, this new unit will, “identify and address threats to the integrity of VET and improve student protections.”

Minister O’Connor added that, “A new confidential tip-off line will be established, giving a safe and confidential avenue for potential whistle-blowers to alert the regulator to serious allegations of non-compliance and fraudulent practices. We will also improve ASQA’s technology to improve intelligence gathering and to more effectively detect and prevent unlawful conduct.”

Commenting on the announcement, industry consultant Claire Field observed that, “Most private international VET providers are ethical and do the right thing by their students, and that is why the government’s response is welcome – because it is so tightly targeted.

And now it is in ASQA’s hands to ensure they also target their regulatory response…Let’s hope they focus on weeding out the unethical and low quality providers and not on a ‘one size fits all’ approach.”

Additional measures to come

Referring to the 2 October announcements around agent transfer commissions and agent ownership of education providers, Minister O’Neil indicated that the government was prepared to take additional steps to combat fraud and exploitation within the Australian visa system.

“This is the first of many announcements…to restore integrity to international education and to our migration system,” she said. “The party is over, the rorts [ed: fraudulent practices] and loopholes that have plagued this system will be shut down.”

For additional background, please see:

• “Pandemic Event Visa scrapped as Australia continues overhaul of student visa policies“
• “Australia takes action on fraud in student visa system“

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• “Closing a loophole” in immigration policy that allowed “education providers to shift international students who have been in Australia for less than six months from genuine study to an arrangement designed to facilitate access to work in Australia.” That loophole was related to students being able to access “concurrent COEs” (Confirmations of Enrolments) for programmes in two sectors (higher education and vocational training [VET]). As of now, institutions are no longer able to create concurrent COEs. “Our message is clear,” said Minister for Home Affairs Clare O’Neil. “The party is over, the [frauds] and loopholes that have plagued this system will be shut down.”

• Increasing by 17% the amount of savings international students must have to get an Australian study visa to reflect higher costs of living in Australia ($24,505 in savings will now be needed). This is intended to ensure students are not pressed into exploitative work when studying due to financial desperation.

• Applying more scrutiny to “high-risk cohorts” (of prospective students) that tend to submit a higher volume of fraudulent applications.

• “Considering consider using its powers under Section 97 of the Education Services for Overseas Students Act (ESOS Act) to issue suspension certificates to high-risk education providers. A suspension certificate means providers would not be able to recruit international students.”

If the government does use its suspension powers, it would be the first time ever. That it would consider doing so is tied to its concern that “more than 200 providers currently have visa refusal rates higher than 50%.”

VET sector to be more closely monitored

The government will also provide the Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA) with more powers to regulate those who manage, oversee, and control Registered Training Organisations (RTOs). RTO owners will have to comply with in order to register their business and operate. The intention, says the government, is to “eliminate the minority of non-genuine operators that profit from students and fail to provide the standards of education and training that students deserve.”

Brendan O’Connor, Minister for Skills and Training, issued a media statement saying: “These changes reflect our determination to strengthen the integrity of the VET sector … 9 out of 10 future jobs will require a post-secondary qualification and VET is a vital pathway to secure jobs … we are committed to lifting perceptions of VET and this is an important step to do that.

Welcome news for stakeholders and quality providers

The context for the government announcement is the Australian international education sector’s rising concern that immigration loopholes have been encouraging non-genuine students to come to Australia.

Of the tightening of immigration measures, Minister for Education Jason Clare stated:

“International student numbers are almost back to where they were before the pandemic. That’s a good thing. International education is an extraordinarily valuable national asset.

But there are also challenges in international education. As students have come back, so have some dodgy and unscrupulous players who are trying to take advantage of them.

This change will work to stop predatory ‘second’ providers from enrolling students before they have studied for the required six months at their first provider.

This will help ensure the integrity of one of our biggest exports while cracking down on dodgy operators.”

“Course-hopping” and “ghost colleges”

The trend the government is working at ending is known as “course hopping”: a student gets a visa to study in a higher education programme or reputable VET programme but ends up being able to shift easily to an inexpensive, private college. Sometimes students do not even attend classes in the second type of institution, a phenomenon sometimes referred to as a “ghost college”. The goal in course hopping is for the student to be able to take up work in Australia rather than his/her stated intention of studying.

Course hopping has been enabled by the ability of students to get two COEs (Confirmations of Enrolment) rather than one on the same visa – i.e., “concurrent enrolments.” The Australian government found that “in the first half of 2023, 17,000 concurrent enrolments were created, compared to approximately 10,500 for the same period in 2019 and 2022 combined.”

Ravi Lochan Singh of Global Reach summarised why concurrent enrolments can be so problematic in :

• “What should occur – A student arrives for a bachelor’s degree at a university but seeks to move to a diploma at a private VET provider. The initial visa has condition 8202 (which requires that a student maintains enrolment in a registered course that is the same Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) level as, or higher than, the course for which they were granted their visa). Therefore, to move to the diploma at the private vet, a new visa should be required.

• What is occurring – What happens is that once [the student is] onshore, an agent organises to cancel the original study plan and enrols the student in two programmes – a VET diploma as well as a bachelor’s degree that may start two years hence and obtains two COEs [Confirmations of Enrolment]. There is no need for the bachelor’s degree to be packaged with the diploma. And thanks to this, Home Affairs is not able to apply 8202. PRISMS shows the current diploma course and the future COE for the bachelor’s degree.”

Mr Singh added that:

“The onshore agents and the colleges have realised that it is much easier if the student simply applies for a fresh visa for the diploma onshore. The student who would have definitely been refused the visa offshore is nearly certain to get the visa for the same course onshore and this is evident from the visa success rate.”

He pointed to Instagram posts showing so-called “ghost colleges” with no students in them and said that he had been told “25 of the colleges are owned directly or indirectly to agents in South Asia and this is a clear conflict of interest.”

More tightening is imminent

Another bone of contention is the fact that a visa subclass introduced in the pandemic, subclass 408, has not yet been phased out. That visa is a renewable 12-month document allowing students to work in any sector of the economy, for more than one employer if desired.

Phil Honeywood, CEO of International Education Association of Australia (IEAA) told Times Higher Education that along with the changes announced already, “the government would ‘imminently’ scrap the ‘nonsense’ … That’s been a long time coming. Approximately…100,000 international students [have] segued into a full-time work visa and been allowed to do so with very little oversight.”

A trend across leading destinations?

Like the Australian government, the Canadian government has had cause to review whether its international education sector is regulated sufficiently. Canada’s international enrolments have been growing rapidly, and there were 30% more foreign students in the country in 2022 than in the previous year.

The country’s immigration department, IRCC, is currently exploring a new Trusted Institution framework that could be in place by 2024, with the intention of significantly raising the bar for Canadian education institutions hosting international students. IRCC has yet to release details of the Trusted Institution framework, but the core concept is to compel Canadian schools, colleges, and universities to “demonstrate that they are reliable partners with regard to sustainable intake, identifying genuine students, monitoring and reporting on their compliance, and providing a safe and enriching experience for their international students.”

For additional background, please see:

• “Australia plans to tighten rules around student visas“
• “Canada to ‘modernise’ student visa programme with Trusted Education Framework“

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makes it clear that technical and vocational education and training (TVET) has a crucial role to play in the progress of many developing economies. But it also highlights that many low and middle-income countries, and their labour markets and societies in particular, are not well served by their domestic TVET systems.

“With its unique focus on workforce development, TVET has the potential to contribute to employment and productivity to better support sustainable economic transformation,” says the study report. “[However,] this promise of TVET is unfulfilled in many [low and middle-income countries] because secondary and post-secondary TVET institutions focus on what they know how to provide, but not what students or firms need.”

The report projects that globalisation, technological change, and demographic trends will lead to an “exponential increase” in the population of TVET learners in the next 20 years. For example: “In Burundi, Liberia, Mali, Mozambique, Senegal, Tanzania, or Uganda, the number of secondary TVET students is expected to more than quadruple; in Sudan and Niger, the number is expected to rise, respectively, by a factor of six and ten.”

But the study also highlights the urgent need for reform and capacity building in many TVET systems around the world. The authors establish that the circumstances of TVET learners, the current capacity of domestic training systems, and the lack, in many countries, of measurable outcomes or other strategic direction for this key education sector, means that many domestic systems are chronically underperforming and out of touch with current and emerging labour market needs.

The study is meant in part to provide guidance to policy makers, and for that audience the message is especially clear: “Countries can start reforms with a strategic approach to priority sectors and programs that would deliver quicker results and can be used as demonstration cases to build stakeholder confidence and trust.”

More broadly, the authors map three themes for longer-term, transformative change.

“[Moving] TVET from being (or being perceived as) a second-tier education track with limited opportunities for continued learning and highly variable returns to guaranteeing demand-driven and equitable acquisition of relevant skills with hands-on and flexible instruction delivered by high-quality teachers with excellent educational resources and infrastructure.”

“[Increasing] the autonomy of TVET providers and [ensuring] greater accountability for results.”

“Building a robust information and evaluation system adapted to the [low and middle-income countries] context [to empower] stakeholders to make informed decisions and improving TVET practices.”

The report is published in a context of increasing investment in TVET in some countries and an expanded presence of TVET programming in international education.

China is a notable example where, as recently reported, “The rapid expansion of China’s post-secondary education sector is increasingly leaning towards vocational education.” New data from China’s Ministry of Education reports the opening of 61 new universities and colleges in China over the past year (that is, through the 12 months leading up to May 2023). Of those, 56 were post-secondary vocational colleges.

China is also reflecting that increasing emphasis on skills training at home in its efforts to further expand Chinese influence abroad through the massive . The Chinese government has now opened more than 30 vocational training centres throughout 25 Belt and Road target countries, and mainly in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.

As the reported in late-2022, “At a vocational school in Indonesia’s East Java, classes are being taught on automotive engineering and maintenance for new energy vehicles. Over 13,000 km away in the Portuguese seaside city of Setubal, students are earning degrees in industrial robotics and automation technology. And soon, a vocational school in central Asia’s Tajikistan will start offering degrees in urban thermal-energy planning. They all have one thing in common: China.”

Known as “Luban Workshops,” these centres provide a wide range of skills training programmes, often focused on Chinese technology and practices, such as maintaining or repairing Chinese motor vehicles, manufacturing systems, or robotics, alongside instruction in traditional Chinese medicine. Tens of thousands of students have already graduated, and earlier this year, the Chinese government reportedly formed a special committee to help drive further expansion of the Luban network.

There is a pattern of expansion and reform here that shows that more governments, families, and students are alert to the need to strengthen skills training. Reforms in many countries have been halting so far, but the scale of opportunity is undeniable and this in turn opens the door to further capacity building in countries around the world, and to a greater role for TVET in international student mobility.

For additional background, please see:

• “New study highlights the expanding landscape of microcredentials“
• “Global survey reveals growing interest in shorter programmes and lifelong learning“

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Within that larger context of rapid expansion, there are now a number of initiatives underway to reinforce and strengthen policies, programmes, and supports for international students in Canada. The latest example of which comes in the form of .

Colleges Ontario is the peak body representing the province’s 24 public colleges. Twenty three of the member colleges have signed on to a new Standards of Practice document that was published on 14 March 2023.

Under those standards, each signatory college commits to:

• Ensuring that marketing to international students is accurate and transparent;
• Requiring that international agents representing their college have completed a sector-endorsed agent training programme;
• Managing its relationships with international education agents and other partners in the marketing and admissions process to support honest business practices that are in the best interests of international students;
• Ensuring that information on services, supports, and facilities are readily available to students, both before and after arrival; and
• Providing targeted assistance to help international students adjust to life and study in Canada.

“Every qualified student deserves to get an excellent post-secondary education,” said Linda Franklin, the president and CEO of Colleges Ontario. “These new standards will help ensure international students can succeed in their programmes.”

The new standards framework for Colleges Ontario builds on similar initiatives for other key destinations, including , New Zealand’s , Australia’s , Australia’s , and the American Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education’s .

The introduction to the Colleges Ontario standards outlines that, “This document builds on the ongoing strengthening of programmes and supports for all students by establishing a common set of minimum standards for international student activity. The standards build on existing practices and the legislative and policy framework and quality assurance mechanisms that guide all college activities…The goal of these standards is to support the well-being of international learners to enhance their opportunities for academic and personal success.”

For additional background, please see:

• “Canada’s foreign enrolment grew by more than 30% in 2022“
• “Canada extends expiring post-graduate work permits for thousands of international students“
• “Canada moving to boost pathways to permanent residency for international students“

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