00:27:26 · Martijn van de Veen, Shawn Silverstone
[00:27:26] S3: A lot of work has already started, right? You mentioned the self regulation, the agent trainings, the professional qualifications, the you know, codes of conduct that are in place, I think these are really good starting points for us as a sector to showcase our, you know, the trust that people can place in the work of the agencies and the professionals that they are. But Shawn, how can the international education sector work together also to advocate for more transparent and consistent visa policies across major study destinations? [00:27:57] S1: It's a very good question. You know, in k to 12, international students are a critical part of Canada's education pipeline, and current visa policies are really damaging the sector's long term sustainability. So some of the recommendations I'd give for policy improvement is is really a greater transparency and consistency in visa decisions to really restore confidence and faster processing for K-twelve students to avoid enrollment disruptions and really clear guidelines for custodianship approvals to prevent unnecessary refusal. So without these changes, Canada really risks losing its competitive edge to countries with more predictable and student friendly policies. And we're seeing that firsthand, I'm hearing it at a lot of these events that I've been attending recently. [00:28:44] S3: Now I can imagine. And and the same same question for you, Michal. What do you think the international education sector can do to work together and advocate for for more transparent and consistent visa policies?
00:28:55 · Michal Sestak
[00:28:55] S0: It's very interesting question. Transparent visa policies. I don't remember government that has been transparent about visa visa policies. I'll give you an example. As an ICEF board member, we've been traveling to Canberra, and we've met politicians on regular basis. When you ask them direct question, you get a politically correct answer, which means you don't get the answer. Yeah. They don't even know what they want. So when you ask them on this question, what do you guys... How would you describe an ideal student? What do you want the industry to do to comply with what your expectations are? And you get this very unclear answer. So, unfortunately, well, the reality is we have to be honest and upfront with the clients and then look, this is the situation. We can do our best. Nevertheless, the final word and the final decision is up to the government. And what has worked six months ago may not necessarily work today because of the changes. We have new government coming up hopefully soon in Canada and Australia. I see that as a very positive, and everybody's really looking forward to that. I think the stability is the word which everybody's seeking, but it's hard to get it. I don't I don't have a problem if the visa requirements are really hard and strict, but just keep them stable. Don't have ref... Visa refusals for a student from Japan, Turkey, Colombia, I don't know, Zimbabwe, where the refusal is literally copy paste. Right? That's not a policy. That's... That doesn't... That's that's it's nothing to do with the regulation, with the law, with the requirement. It's just someone said, oh, hang on a minute. We have to refuse 90,000 student pesos to hit our target for the pre election. So what can we do as an industry? Well, showcase how migration and students particularly are integral part of society of both countries, guess, Canada and Australia, and that we do need skilled migrants, which mostly turn out in Australia as international students at the beginning. So telling the government, look, yes, we understand that we need to control migration due to infrastructure limitations. And I get it. It's a unreasonable argument from the government, but give us some kind of a rules. We follow them to the dot, but don't change the rules every Monday, because that's... It's very difficult.
00:31:22 · Martijn van de Veen
[00:31:22] S3: Yeah, that's the demand indeed, as you mentioned, for stability, that demand for transparency, that demand to avoid all this uncertainty that exists in the market, right? Because that's never a good thing to have, And because it means that you cannot really prepare for what's coming if you don't know what is coming. So the one way to maybe avoid too much risk in student recruitment is of course and visa processing is of course diversification of source markets. Shawn, how important is that diversification of sourced markets becoming for eight to 12 institutions in light of visa uncertainties in traditional markets?
00:31:59 · Shawn Silverstone, Martijn van de Veen
[00:31:59] S1: It's huge. I mean, if we learned anything from the, you the pandemic, can't have all your eggs in one basket. So diversification is just something that, especially with the visa rejection rate right now is huge. Given the visa uncertainties in some regions, K-twelve institutions, we gotta like reduce our dependency on a single country and really expand our recruitment efforts in these more stable markets. And some of the emerging markets for, you know, k to 12, you know, if you're looking at Latin America, there's there's a few like, you know, Chile and Colombia and in Europe, you know, looking at France and Switzerland and some of the Nordic countries and in Southeast Asia, Thailand, and Taiwan. And, you know, looking at some of those more stable markets that are continuing to grow for Canada too, like Hong Kong and Macau. This is great demand for K to 12 education right now. So by really diversifying our markets, schools can really reduce the risk of like a sudden enrollment declines due to these visa policy changes or the next wave of a pandemic or anything else that may happen. [00:33:05] S3: Yeah. No. Of course, I think diversification is a great point of advice. And, you know, I'd actually like to conclude this episode, this... Sorry, this main topic with some advice from the three of you for our audience, really saying a few words about the most critical pieces of advice that you would offer to schools, agents and prospective students to navigate the current uncertainties in the international student visa landscape? Michal, may I start with you?
00:33:31 · Michal Sestak
[00:33:31] S0: The advice to schools and agents... Well, advice to agents because I work a lot with agents even though I'm an agent myself. Be professional. Pay attention. Listen. Take your job with the vision that your outcome of your work will change someone's life. Right? As I as I mentioned initially, government sees agents as salesmen. They do actually because I was in Canberra in a meeting with the politicians. It was a committee committee... Parliamentary committee meeting. And the members of the parliament did say, well, agents are salesmen of schools. That's part of the ESOS Act. We have a legislation which governs the operation of schools, that that specific legislation does mention education agents as being salesmen of the schools. Ultimately, that puts all the responsibility on the school itself. So if an agent makes a mistake or if there's a problem, if the agent doesn't refund the money back to the student in case of visa refusal, ultimately, the school is responsible. So that falls back down to schools, and at least in Australia, schools are trying to improve their processes, trying to scan clients as best as they can. But again, who is scanning the clients? Not migration lawyers, not people who are actually writing submissions. That's an admin staff who may be trained, for example, by myself at various schools, but it's hard because we have... Some of my clients have been refused by certain schools. We went to another school because they do know me. They know my work. They let it through. All the business were granted. So the advice really is to work with with agents that you do trust for more than just the sales, but you do trust their processes. Agents who actually put their name on the line, like migration agents, I have to put my name under every single application. That's mandatory. So if I have a lot of refusals, immigration may come and penal ize me, or I may have a problem with extending my license for the next year. Education agents being part of the school's infrastructure in some way as part of the ESOS Act, if they have a problem, no one really cares much. You know, the school will be in trouble, but not the agent him or herself. So it's the whole the whole balance in my view is is wrong. Agents need to take responsibility, but because we have no legislation or registration system, why would they write? Who would force them?
00:36:03 · Michal Sestak, Martijn van de Veen
Ultimately, the schools are the one that needs to, in addition to the education part, which is the primary, should be the primary activity of the school, they also have to look after the army of salesmen, which are placed all over the world. So it puts a lot of pressure on the schools. And I did raise this issue with the government. Look, schools are here to teach, not to be policing their the their agents all over the world. They don't even, they don't understand the culture, they understand, they don't speak the language, you know, be helpful in the processes. [00:36:40] S3: It emphasizes once again, right, Michal, that it's so important to work with reliable, accredited agents in this space, and that also ties in with the regulation from within the industry. Craig, what would you add to that? What are some of these most critical piece of advice that you would offer to our listeners to deal with the uncertainties in the international student visa landscape?