Indian study visa applications for Oz unaffected despite attacks

Despite the recent uproar on a spate of alleged racist attacks on Indians in Australia, and calls to boycott Australia as a study destination by some quarters, there has been no drop in Indian study visa applications for Australia.

Chris Evans, Australia’s Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, has told one of India’s leading dailies, that the visa applications to study in Australia by Indians applications in June as compared to May has in fact gone up by 8 percent, though he showed concern about the damage the recent incidents have caused to the country’s reputation as a safe tourist destination.

One of the main reasons for why so many students from developing countries, especially Indians go to study in Australia is to permanently migrate there. The Australian immigration system has many shortcomings. It awards points to particular job classification for migration purposes and some job classifications that require educational backgrounds enough from short-term courses like cooking and hair dressing have very high points. Unscrupulous agents are exploiting this to facilitate students to get Permanent Residency (PR) using the education system as a front and market these courses to people whose primary objective is to migrate to Australia.

If Australia can manage to plug these loopholes in its immigration system, there would undoubtedly be a shortfall in Indian visa applications. However, will the Australian government do this at this point of time when the country has received so much bad publicity? After all it has some stats to show to the world if it wants the foreign money and the skills to keep coming in.