“selecting those students and graduates with the best chance of making a good transition to our labour market early will be key to the migration system’s success over coming decades. This is something Australia has not done well over recent years”

In a new report for the Commonwealth, Martin Parkinson (Macquarie U chancellor) and colleagues* address the interface between immigration and education – they identify issues and suggest improvements

* increase students’ chances in our labour market: possibilities include, “removing barriers to students building networks and gaining work experience” and increasing the English-language requirement for student/graduate visas

* focus graduate visas on students’ demonstrating, “potential in our labour market” by, study completers moving automatically from student to graduate visas but limiting duration to “how long it takes to identify high potential graduates who will succeed on a permanent labour visa.”

* “a more certain direction” to permanent residence pathway, based on “a very narrow set of circumstances,” students’ attributes, performance and study level

* working hours, “it is time for the government to specifically review the student working hours cap”

* education providers acting: “more work needs to be done outside of the migration system to support international students to transition to work and access legal remedies in response to exploitative wages and conditions in the labour market. This could be done through working with education providers to support students.”

* “creating a “genuine student test” instead of the Genuine Temporary Entrant criterion.

* Martin Parkinson, Joanna Howe, John Azarias, Review of the Migration System final report, HERE