Student visas in Australia will be issued according to priorities - I, II and III

The Australian government has introduced a new directive on the processing of student visas, which will improve the process of distributing international students between educational institutions. This is how the third priority level for institutions appeared, which exceeded the established annual limit of enrollment of students by 115%.

On November 15, Ministerial Directive No115 came into force, which replaced the previous document No111. The new project was developed as part of Australia's national policy to manage the number of foreign students starting their studies in the country for the first time. The purpose of this legislative initiative is to support the stability and integrity of the international education system in Australia: the new approach will help to evenly distribute the burden on educational institutions, avoid situations where some institutions face a saturation of students, and others lose funding due to shortages.

How the new priorities are distributed:

• The highest priority - Priority 1 - will be given to those institutions that meet the recommended enrollment rates and do not exceed the threshold of 80%. That is, until the educational center has exhausted the annual quota, visa applications from its potential students will be processed the fastest.
• The average processing speed - Priority 2 - is provided for those cases when the institution reaches the specified limit, but does not exceed the maximum threshold of 115%.
• The lowest priority - Priority 3 - is associated with a longer processing time: it will apply to organizations that have exceeded the mark of 115% of the total annual recommendations.

However, the new directive also takes into account exceptional cases. For example, some types of applications from foreigners will retain the Priority 1 status regardless of the achievements of specific educational institutions:

• School
• English language programs for foreigners ELICOS,
• Programs without awarded scholarships,
• TAFE-type educational institutions,
• Pilot studying courses,
• Postgraduate research programs,
• Students who have received a state scholarship,
• Students in the transnational education program,
• Applicants from the Pacific or Timor-Leste.