00:11:46 · Michal Sestak, Martijn van de Veen
[00:11:46] S0: Yes. We we... Yes. We do. Good morning from Whistler, Canada at the moment on my holidays. As Martijn already mentioned, my name is Michal Sestak. I'm the, managing director and principal migration agent at AustraliaOnline. I'm also board member of ICEF, which is an education agent association in Australia. And we're working a lot with Australian government on obviously the topics of international education. I became an education agent in 1993 and in 2001 completed the Korean migration law and obviously became migration agent and been working in that field ever since. We have offices across Latin America, Europe, Asia and Australia. I'm very passionate about the international education because I believe that every person has the right for education and education is what's going to propel the humanity, our humanity and society to the next level. I think education plays a pivotal role in that. So thank you guys for having me here today, and I'll be happy to share all my expertise from the last two years, but also from the last thirty years. [00:12:56] S3: Wonderful. Well, I'm sure Michal, we don't not only share the love, but also the passion for this industry. Now, as we're discussing visa rejection rates and other processing challenges, let's just start by painting a picture of what that is, particularly in Canada and Australia, and Michal what, what are, for you in in the case of Australia, I imagine, what are some of the main challenges and main issues, especially when you compare it to previous years? Why is this now such an important topic?
00:13:25 · Michal Sestak
[00:13:25] S0: It is important because Australia is experiencing unprecedented levels of student visa refusals. There's a debate about what is the main cause, and and obviously, every person has his own opinion. From my experience, politics plays a major role. If you look at pre COVID, we had a steady growth of international students to Australia from pretty much all over the world. Static, controlled, managed well. COVID hit, borders closed, a lot of employers lost staff, the production went down, I guess, all over the world. And then as soon as the Australian government opened the borders, there was an influx of international students because that's what the government allowed to happen. So you can, for example, we can look at a good example of a country, in Latin America. Pre COVID, we had about 5,500 to 6,000 students come in on annual basis. After COVID, within the year of financial year 2023, we had twenty four thousand six hundred, which is a massive, massive increase. Right? And now the government seems to be penalizing Colombians by refusing their because there's too many of them in Australia, and they left their own room. Well, my question would be, why did they let them in in the first place? Because the government didn't really check anything. They opened the borders. Anybody can come. There was no integrity applied by the government. No one was checking financials. No one was checking any eligibility requirements, and so on and so forth. So it seems to me now that the government realized that they've probably, you know, haven't done the right thing to be put it nicely, and now they're trying to correct it. So you go from one extreme to another. So I think politics has a lot to do with it. I don't believe it... The clients are still the same. The requirements for studying Australia hasn't really changed. We have election coming up this year very soon in Australia, and obviously immigration is a topic for most governments around the world or western governments, but that still doesn't doesn't justify such a huge increases in these refusers. So my belief, it's just correcting the numbers back to normality rather than anything else.
00:15:43 · Martijn van de Veen
[00:15:43] S3: Right. So you're really saying it's it's politics that back in the day, no one was checking financials. You mentioned no one was checking any eligibility requirements, and they're now realizing that they may have not approached it in the right way and format, and that is now being correct or even perhaps overly corrected through politics. Is that something you see happening as well in Canada, or is this a different situation altogether, Shawn? I guess from, like, the perspective of the, you know,
00:16:08 · Shawn Silverstone
[00:16:08] S1: the k to 12 institutions, the visa refusal rates are really dramatically reshaping the international education landscape, and it's impacting not only the post secondary institutions, but also the K-twelve schools that really rely on long term student enrollment. So while the K to 12 students, you know, often have stronger ties to their home countries, since their families typically intend for them to return after grad... The increasing unpredictability in student visa approvals has really led to a notable slowdown in new enrollments. And, you know, specifically for our pipeline, families are delaying applications or choosing alternative destinations where visa approvals are are more predictable, maybe such as The UK or even United States. And increasing uncertainty discourages long term planning and leading to fewer multiyear commitments from international families. And recruitment agents are also struggling to confidently promote Canada when, visa outcomes are inconsistent. And institutions are really being forced to adjust their marketing and enrollment strategies and focusing on markets with historically higher visa success rates. So lower renewal rates for students already in Canada and families are growing concerned about potential future for immigration hurdles.
00:17:19 · Martijn van de Veen
[00:17:19] S3: Yeah. And I totally can imagine that. Craig, what's your look on this when you hear the input from Australia and Canada? I know you've written a few articles on the topic of visa rejection rates. What are some of those causes that you identify? And do you see it across multiple prominent destination?
00:17:36 · Craig Riggs
[00:17:36] S4: Yeah, we really do. I mean, Australia and Canada are two significant examples at the moment because in both countries, we've seen over the last year a series of new rules or policy changes that have been brought forward by respective national governments that have just all essentially led to a more restrictive environment for student movement and visa processing in particular. We don't yet have full year data in hand for both countries, but the data points that we do have make it very clear that there has been a significant increase in refusal rates for student visas in particular, in Canada and in The US. For example, the numbers that we do have tell us that just more than half, 52% of study permit applications to Canada were refused in 2024. That's up from just over 38% the year prior. 38% to 52%, that's a significant change and a similar pattern playing out in Australia. I think as both Michal and Shawn are pointing to, that when you see that kind of significant change in the number of student visa applications that are being refused, it sets up a lot of confusion and uncertainty in the marketplace. And the thing we can put alongside that is, aside from rejection rates, just processing times for students. It feels like that governments in Canada, Australia, we see it in The US as well, are not investing sufficiently in visa processing systems. It's leading to significant delays in processing times in many destinations. And that is another aspect of uncertainty and disruption in the marketplace. It just impedes student decision making, makes it more difficult for students to plan their studies in some of these major destinations with confidence. So that is, on the one hand, we're seeing objective indication that visas are getting more difficult to get and taking longer to get. And as both Shawn and Michal are explaining, that has had a really profound effect on student decision.