Visa fee cuts no fix for crumbling ELICOS sector

Experts, student visa fees, calls to reduce the fees of Australia will not be enough to revive the problematic English language sector, he said. Dr Abul is reporting Rizvi.

English language intensive courses for overseas students (Elicos) sector lobbying the government To reduce visa application fees for students applying for short English language courses.

Although the major increase in student visa application fees is a weak policy if we attract the best students, it is not clear that reducing wages for Elicos students will be a good policy. Australia can send exactly the wrong message about the quality of overseas students that are trying to shoot.

Accordingly Phil Honeywood (Australian International Education Association CEO (CEO (IEAA), the visa fee to $ 2,000 “kills” Australia’s Elicos sector. There are a number of high profile college cover in recent months, IH SydneyPerth International English College (Pice), Language Academy and Recently, LONSDALE Institute. However, when the government was bored, closing was inevitable. This started long before the visa fee increased.

The Elicos sector has a long explosion and a history of busts starting from the first explosion in the late 1980s, then the closure of many Elicos College, which was established quickly to take advantage of ten years of overseas students (not education, not education).

In the 1980s, most of the Elicos students applied for asylum, and ultimately permanent residence was given through a visa that was not a specially designed noble in the 1990s. During the permanent residence process, it became clear that very few learned English. The Ministry of Migration has been careful against the Elicos sector since then.

The latest explosion from 2022, unlimited business rights and free visa application policies such as the student visa accelerator followed the coalition government.

The new Labor Party government was slow to tighten policy and allow the explosion to continue for a long time. The squeezing has targeted the Elicos sector (and the veterinarian sector as well as) and the student visa application fees started long before 1 July 2024 and then again from 1 July 2025. Even if the visa application fees decreased, the government had no chance to return to the Elicos sector 2022-24 explosion.

The decrease in the ELICOS Student visa grants stems from a huge increase in the rejection rate, especially from countries with the largest growth (Colombia). Offshore Elicos Student Visa rejection rate rose to almost 20% in 2022-23, almost 20% in 2023-24 and to almost 25% in 2024-25. The rejection rate for open sea Elicos students from Colombia rose from 4% to 30% in 2022-23 and almost 40% in 2024-25%.

The main issues that the government should discuss with the requested wage reduction are as follows:

• Considering that wage increase is a promise of election and that income is used to finance other budget measures, the balancing of income will be required. Lobby groups talk about a fee for changing providers (some universities want boiled or separated students to limit the loss of loss because they are satisfied with their original providers) and/or to increase wage increase for addicts. Secondly, especially elderly students who make higher degrees on the demand for working in Australia will have an impact. Research universities may not support a higher fee for addicts.
• To limit the impact of an increase in ELICOS students on net migration. The Elicos sector argues that students do not affect net migration, because they only left short courses and then left before they were counted in net migration. This is not true. In 2022-23, 14,781 Elicos student continued to study a veterinary course. This fell into a veterinary course to 11,523 Elicos student. He continued to hold fewer higher education courses. The government may limit this phenomenon by applying a compulsory “no more” condition to all students who have a Elicos course. However, the condition of “no more stay” will further reduce the demand for Elicos courses, perhaps the higher student visa is more than the application fee.
• In addition, Elicos students, who entered the condition of “no more stay”, would turn to a asylum application as the only way to extend their stay. This was from Colombia to some extent with the large explosion in Elicos students (see Graph 2).

After the explosion of Elicos students from Colombia, there was a major increase in asylum in Colombian citizens. This rose from a historically high 156 to 2022-23 to 2023-24 to an extraordinary 756.

From the policy perspective, it is logical to reduce the visa application fee to facilitate Elicos students from very low immigration risks, including the mandatory “staying” status.

However, it is unlikely that the industry will be a panacea that he thinks is in terms of return to the explosion in 2022-24. This explosion was primarily directed by Elicos students from high migration risks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oadau4jsmfu

DR ABUL Rizvi An independent Australian columnist And a former deputy secretary of the Ministry of Immigration. You can follow Abul on Twitter @Rizviabul.

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