Australia adjusts the study visa approval process to control the number of international students entering the country.
Published: December 19, 2024
The Australian government announced that starting from December 19, 2024, the 'Ministerial Direction 107' (MD107) implemented by former Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil on December 14, 2023, will be replaced by the new 'Ministerial Direction 111' (MD111). This change will have a significant impact on the approval process of international student visas, aiming to improve approval efficiency and more fairly allocate visa approval resources.
Changes between MD107 and MD111
MD107 once stipulated that the processing order of student visa applications (including student guardian visas and offshore 500 category student visas) would prioritize students from low-risk countries and high-rated Australian universities. However, this regulation was found to have caused unbalanced effects on certain educational institutions, especially in terms of resource allocation and approval speed.
To address this issue, the new 'Ministerial Direction 111' was officially implemented today, aiming to optimize the international student visa approval process and ensure more fair and efficient management. MD111 applies to all pending offshore student visa applications, whether they have been submitted or will be submitted after December 19, 2024. The new directive clarifies the priority processing categories for student visa applications, setting different priorities based on the enrollment situation of different educational institutions.
Specific changes of MD111
According to MD111, the new policy divides offshore student visas into two priority processing categories:
- Priority 1 – High: Applicable to student visa applications from educational institutions that have not yet reached the Prioritisation Threshold indicated by PRISMS (the system managed by the Department of Education for enrollment information). This threshold is 80% of the new overseas student enrollment quota for 2025. Visa applications under this category will be processed faster than other categories and will be prioritized for approval.
- Priority 2 – Standard Priority: Applicable to student visa applications from educational institutions that have reached the Prioritisation Threshold, or other non-priority student visa applications. The processing speed for visa applications in this category is relatively slower.
It is noteworthy that MD111 does not set a hard quota for visa applications, nor does it set specific criteria for the approval or rejection of visa applications. This directive mainly optimizes resource allocation to ensure that educational institutions and students can receive more fair opportunities for visa approval.
Who will benefit from the fast approval of Priority 1?
Priority 1 category is applicable to the following situations:
- Student visa applications from educational institutions that have not yet reached the Prioritisation Threshold.
- Educational institutions in the fields of higher education and vocational education and training (VET).
- Specific groups of students, such as schools, higher degree by research students, scholarship students, TAFE students, and students from the Pacific and Timor-Leste.
These student groups will enjoy a higher priority in visa processing, ensuring they can obtain visa approval more quickly.
The significance and outlook of the new policy
The new 'Ministerial Direction 111' will help to more fairly allocate resources for study visas, especially supporting remote areas and small educational institutions, avoiding excessive concentration of resources due to too many applications from universities in big cities. Through this tiered priority processing approach, the Australian government hopes to meet the needs of higher education while also reasonably controlling the number of international students entering the country, thereby maintaining a balance in educational resources.
The Australian Department of Home Affairs will continue to prioritize the processing of offshore student visa applications and ensure that student visas can be processed in time for the start of the first semester of the 2025 academic year, promoting the healthy development of Australia's education industry.
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