Literature Review: Visa Policy Changes on Australian Education Sector

This literature review examines the evolving Australian migration program, particularly the changes in visa policies since 2019, focusing on the introduction of regional visas and their implications. It discusses the potential impacts of these changes, alongside the COVID-19 pandemic, on international students, the education sector, and the broader Australian economy. The review synthesizes findings from various academic sources, highlighting the concerns about student enrollment, the economic contributions of the education sector, and the interconnectedness of visa laws with educational and economic performance. It explores the potential consequences of stringent visa policies on regional occupancy, employment, and the career prospects of international students, concluding with an emphasis on the impact on permanent residency aspirations and student enrollment in Australian universities. The review references various sources like Grewal (2020), Acacia-au.com (2020a, 2020b), Tran and Nghia (2020), AboElsoud et al. (2020), Wit (2020), McLeay et al. (2020), Wright and Clibborn (2020), Anderson (2020), and Aph.gov.au (2020) to support its arguments.

Literature review
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As per Grewal (2020), Australian migration program has been changing since 2019 and
major change can be seen in terms of the recent two regional visas. Along with the substantial
change in the permanent residential status of international workforce as well students,
Australian migration is supposed to face significant changes in its immigration system. New
Skilled Work Regional visa and Skilled Employer-Sponsored Regional visa with subclass
491 and 494 is now available that allow more people to move to regions for permanent
settling. However, as per new visa law, nothing is permanent and permanent residential status
as per Grewal (2020) is moving target for the government.
As per the acacia-au.com (2020a), recent COVID-19 pandemic is also supposed to change
the permanent immigration requirement in Australia. It has been speculated that the
Australian government will provide any financial support to the workers and the students
who are in the country on visa. However, later it has been mentioned that students with more
than one year can have financial support from government. Hence, it is supposed to be
considered that the Australian permanent status for the workers and students was supposed to
change, and the recent pandemic will change it faster with stringent implication
Australia have more than 800,000 international students who comes from different part of the
world for higher studies. Visa policy of the students was easy until now, however, in march
2019, it changed rapidly with the inclusion of new subclasses. Thus, as per the Tran and
Nghia (2020), change in the visa law will lead to catastrophic impact on the student
enrolment in the Australian universities. Moreover, if the lesser number of students gets
enrolled in the Australian universities, then it will reduce the economic contribution of the
education sector towards Australian economy as well.
Underpinning the finding of the AboElsoud et al. (2020), it can be seen that international
students constitute a significant portion of the university students of Australia. As the recent
change in the visa policy is directed towards regional integrity, it can be seen that the
education industry is supposed to face major blow. Moreover, recent pandemic is also
supposed to provide a crippling blow to the Australian education sector leading to fall in the
performance of the overall economic performance of the state from the education perspective.
When it comes to the impact of the visa change on the education sector, then finding of the
Wit (2020), can be considered who argued in favour of the strict visa policy. As the number
of international students are rising in the Australian universities, local and regional students
are facing it difficult to get enrolment. Moreover, local education performance is also
deteriorating as the major universities prefer to have international students rather than

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focusing on the domestic students. If the visa recent visa law is stringent towards providing
permanent residency to Australian students, then it will provide positive effect to the
educational sector of the state.
As per McLeay et al. (2020), visa laws and the educational as well as economic performance
of state is interconnected. If the visa law is stringent enough, then it will not be able to
enhance the economic performance of the state and the educational power as well. Thus, the
new law will bring in negative impact on the educational sector.
As per Wright and Clibbom (2020), total number of the student in Australia is largely
directed towards NSW, Victoria and Queensland and this has made these territories highly
populated. One of the major reasons of the rising number of the population in these states is
the rising number of the foreign students converting into permanent resident of these states.
This has sufficiently changed the employment as well as the education sector of the Australia.
Moreover, through the rising number of the permanent residents in Australia who are foreign
national, has sufficiently reduced the scope of the local people to have employment and
education. Hence, government has brought in recent visa changes in order to enhance the
regional occupancy. This will lead to fall in the enrolment of the students in the coming
sessions as more students have to shift from main university premise to other states where the
transportation, employment and housing scope is limited.
Anderson (2020), has considered the career implication of the recent changes in the visa
policy by the Australian government. As per the study, if the Australian government
continues to follow the changed permanent residency status for international students, then it
is supposed to face fall in the enrolment of students in the coming years. Moreover,
underpinning the recent COVID-19 pandemic, the study has also suggested that foreign
students will lose their part time jobs leading to fall in their economic operations. This way
the whole economy will face a fall in the performance under the recent visa norms change.
As the recent change suggests, there has been large drop in the number of permanent resident
status permission by the Australian government (Acacia-au.com 2020b). One of the major
reasons of the same is the changing visa policy. As the permanent residency has become
specific, there is more scope that some place will have low or no demand for permanent
residency, whereas, some will have excess demand. This demand and supply gap will
eventually lead to fall in the demand of the Australian permanent residency leading to fall in
the overall economic performance of the state.

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Lastly, in order to highlight the impact of the resent permanent residency status changing visa
policy, it can be said that students will be impacted highly. As the number of permanent
residencies falls over the years, there has been a smaller number of student enrolment in the
different universities of Australia. As the outcome of the same there has been fall in the
number of the people who are willing to have permanent residency in the different states of
Australia. Become region specific visa, has provided a negative impact on the aspirants who
want to have permanent residency as opined by Aph.gov.au (2020).

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Reference:
AboElsoud, M.E., AlQudah, A. and Elish, E., 2020. Does a change in immigration affect the
unemployment rate in host countries? Evidence from Australia. Journal of Applied
Economics, 23(1), pp.21-43.
Acacia-au.com. (2020). COVID-19 - Temporary Visa Work Arrangements | Acacia |
Immigration Australia. [online] Available at: https://www.acacia-au.com/temporary-visa-
work-arrangements-covid19.php [Accessed 13 Apr. 2020].
Acacia-au.com. 2020b. Changes to the Partner Visas and an Important Message for
International Students | Acacia | Immigration Australia. [online] Available at:
https://www.acacia-au.com/Changes-to-the-Partner-Visas-and-an-Important-Message-for-
International-Students.php [Accessed 13 Apr. 2020].
Anderson, T., 2020. News media representations of international and refugee postsecondary
students. The Journal of Higher Education, 91(1), pp.58-83.
Aph.gov.au. 2020. Overseas students: immigration policy changes 1997–2015 – Parliament
of Australia. [online] Available at:
https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/
Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1516/OverseasStudents [Accessed 13 Apr. 2020].
De Wit, H., 2020. Internationalization of higher education. Journal of International
Students, 10(1), pp.i-iv.
Grewal. P., 2020a. Australian visas: Important immigration changes that will impact
migrants in 2020. [online] Available at:
https://www.sbs.com.au/language/english/audio/australian-visas-important-immigration-
changes-that-will-impact-migrants-in-2020 [Accessed 13 Apr. 2020].
McLeay, F., Lichy, J. and Asaad, F., 2020. Insights for a post-Brexit era: Marketing the UK
as a study destination–An analysis of Arab, Chinese, and Indian student choices. Journal of
Strategic Marketing, 28(2), pp.161-175.
Tran, L.T. and Nghia, T.L.H., 2020. Leadership in international education: leaders’
professional development needs and tensions. Higher Education, pp.1-17.
Wright, C.F. and Clibborn, S., 2020. A guest-worker state? The declining power and agency
of migrant labour in Australia. The Economic and Labour Relations Review, 31(1), pp.34-58.