Monthly Archives: April 2019

Critical Updates for Australian Students

Home Affairs is currently in the process of reviewing and revising evidentiary requirements for student visa applicants from certain countries.

In the meantime, major change is announced in relation to applicants from Nepal wishing to lodge their student visa application from 1 May 2019 and study in VET sector will  be required to provide evidence of English as well as financial capacity (irrespective of whether the application will be processed under streamlined arrangements).

As this is a new arrangement, the existing document check tool may not necessarily reflect this new arrangement until the system is fully updated.

As some readers may recall, student visa framework was reviewed in 2016 whereby the combined country and education provider evidence framework became based on immigration outcomes, and guides whether a visa applicant is required to provide evidence of English language proficiency and financial capability at the time of the student visa application.

There is no connection between the evidence framework and the quality of an education provider.

Under the simplified student visa framework (SSVF) each country and each Commonwealth Register of Institutions and Courses for Overseas Students (CRICOS)-registered education provider is allocated an evidence level. Education provider and country evidence levels are then combined to guide financial and English evidence requirements for student visa applicants.

All education providers have access to the benefits of streamlined evidence requirements. Education providers that obtain the lowest evidence level have streamlined evidence requirements for all countries, while education providers with the highest evidence level only receive these benefits for students from the lowest evidence level countries.

Where streamlined evidence requirements apply, the student visa applicant will generally be able to satisfy the department of their financial capacity by declaration and they will not generally need to provide evidence their English proficiency. However, we can request further evidence where appropriate.

Where regular evidence requirements apply the student will generally be required to provide evidence of their financial and English language capacity.

New skilled regional provisional visas

The new skilled regional provisional visas will be for skilled migrants, and dependent family members, who want to live and work in Australia.

There will be two new skilled regional provisional visas introduced in November 2019:
Skilled Employer Sponsored Regional (Provisional) visa: for people sponsored by an employer in regional Australia.

Skilled Work Regional (Provisional) visa: for people who are nominated by a State or Territory government or sponsored by an eligible family member to live and work in regional Australia.

Holders of the new skilled regional provisional visas will be able to apply for a Permanent Residence visa
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Changes to Partner Visa – Effective April 17th

Immigration have announced that they will be introducing a change to partner visas. From April 17 2019, the Migration Amendment (Family Violence and Other Measures) Act 2018 will commence. This means the Sponsor (your Australian partner) must apply for sponsorship first and be approved BEFORE the Partner Visa application can be lodged.

Therefore applicants will need to lodge the sponsorship and then lodge the application once the sponsorship has been approved.