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Students from India, Pakistan, China and Sri Lanka, desiring to study in Australia, face tougher tests under the new visa regulations of the country.
"The regulations are to crackdown on visa scams. The new package of reform merely lays down in more transparent terms the conditions required for securing a student visa," an Immigration ministry spokeswoman said.
"We welcome overseas students and qualified and skilled people to apply for permanent residence. The regulations have been made more stringent because many people are using student visa as a backdoor entry into the country," the spokeswoman said.
"Students from some countries have to provide a little more information to support their application to show they are bonafide students," she said.
The Australian government has created ranking of countries based on the overstay rates of foreign students, visa fraud and students working full time.
On a scale of one to five, India has secured 3 to 4 marks, which puts it in the high risk realm of non-compliance with the bonafide visa requirements, the spokeswoman said.
Previously there had simply been a list of 'gazetted and non-gazetted countries' with the non gazetted countries facing more scrutiny. The criteria for India, which was always a non-gazetted country, doesn't change very much.
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