Editorial || 15th November 2010

Australia, one of the most developed countries of the world has always been a top destination for people from all around the world for permanent migration. Besides professionals to migrate from different countries Australia has been providing opportunities to international students to come here for education and apply for permanent residency upon completing their education. Hence the education industry has become a multibillion dollar business for Australia. However very short term migration policies and change of migration rules have always made it even more difficult to cope with. The latest development of migration rules that has been announced on 11^th November, 2010 perhaps struck the most fatal blow to the hope of the existing international students. According to this new rule a new point test system will be operational from July 2011 which essentially ignores any point coming from the selected occupation in the SOL list; however the occupation has to be SOL listed in order to be eligible to apply for permanent residency. There will be points for age, highest level of education and for education received in Australia. In addition points will be awarded for job experience, partner skills, and community language expertise (NAATI certified). One good thing about the new system is the increase of the age limit for 30 points which will be set at 25-32 range instead of the current 25-30. The worst part however is the English language skill requirement which for most of the international students has to be provided through a superb IELTS score in each of the four bands. Now it is broadly understood and agreed that proficient English language skill is required to build up a professional career in an English speaking country like Australia; however the conditions that are set to be imposed on the band score are quite exaggerated with respect to other criteria. For example, a score of 6 in each band will be rewarded with zero point; a score of 7 and 8 in each band will be given 10 and 20 points respectively. The question at this point is whether a person of technology related profession necessarily needs to have such extensive knowledge of English over their technical skills? The reason behind that question is, better Academic records for these types of students are severely less valued with respect to the English language skills. We should certainly not expect the same level of language skills of a Journalist and an Information Technology professional or an Engineer as the Journalist is also not expected to have superior technical skills. The moral of the story is that the authority here seems to recognize communication skills over the programming skills of a programmer. The question to the policy makers is whether computers can understand plain communicating English that they are vigorously putting ahead of everything else? Although it is undeniable that a certain level of English language expertise is required for all, a standard of such height that is set to be followed is vastly inflated. Respected authorities in Australia always talk about getting efficient and professionally skilled people; however there is strong doubt that they will get better professionals once these rules are operational. Coming to the point distribution, 5 points will be awarded for Australian one year full time or overseas three years full time professional experience whereas there is a jump of 10 points for getting 8 from 7 in each band. Once again language skills have been emphasized over much needed professional experiences. At this stage although Australia is the fifth most attractive study destination (source: www.abs.gov.au) in the world the quality of education they provide for the amount of expenses does not really stand out compared to the standard of education of many other developed countries. Hence increasing the quality of education is probably the most important task to carry out rather than changing immigration rules every now and then. In addition, the respected authority should also understand that Australia not only needs good speakers but also the people who will manufacture the microphones for those speakers to use. It is utterly a shame that the authority is such short sighted and hence only strives for momentary settlement and changes the rules in the name of Australian benefits whereas those benefits are hardly observed. According to The Australian newspaper and other sources a three year Bachelor course in Australia requires an international student (from countries like Bangladesh, China, India etc) to provide evidence of $144,000 fund compared to around $45,000 for US and around $25,000 for New Zealand or Canada. On top of that the amount of money they charge as student visa fee is way over the visa fees for other countries. Now considering all these facts it is to see whether Australia will remain as one of the top destinations for the international students. Also it might be a proper time for foreign students to rethink about their decision to come to Australia for study purpose with a hope of getting permanent residency after successful completion of education.

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