Students doing bachelor and above will be assessed as level -1.

2 and 3-4 years job search visa, after UG and PG studies respectively

No IELTS for English courses

UNIVERSITIES are jubilant about the Australian government’s response to theKnight Review of the student visa program. The Group of Eight says the planned changes will enable Australian universities “to compete more effectively in the global market” by increasing “Australia’s attractiveness as a study destination.” Universities Australia headlined its press release “Knight Review a Boon to Higher Education.”

The post-Knight situation will be different in important ways. There will be no direct route to permanent residency. Instead, international students will be offered a temporary work visa after successful graduation: a two-year visa work for an undergraduate degree, a three-year work visa for a masters degree and a four-year work visa for a PhD.

The temporary work visa is only one of the planned changes. The government is also introducing “streamlined visa processing arrangements” that treat all students undertaking university study at undergraduate level or higher as being at the lowest level of risk (riskassessment level 1) regardless of their country of origin.

The government will also allow students planning to study English to apply for a visa without meeting any minimum language requirements.

Under the new rules, international students may arrive in Australia at age twenty, complete a three-year undergraduate degree, and then work in Australia for two years on a temporary visa. By the time their visa expires they will be twenty-five years old and will have spent one fifth of their young life in Australia. Graduates who move from undergraduate study to complete a masters degree followed by the allowable three years of temporary work could end up with their visa expiring at age twenty-eight, having spent eight of those years living and working in Australia.

DIAC's timetable of proposed changes to the Student Visa program for 2012 includes the following key stages:

January 2012 : Discussion Paper released on Student Visa assessment levels

April 2012 : Streamlined processing arrangements for University courses at Degree and Post-Graduate level, treating all applicants as Assessment Level 1

June 2012 : Findings of Student Visa assessment level review

2013 : Post-study work rights introduced for Bachelor and Masters/PhD Graduates