Education agents will be banned from receiving commissions for poaching students enrolled in other institutions under a federal government crackdown on the embattled international education sector.
Over the coming days, Labor will announce a host of reforms in response to a review led by former Victoria police chief commissioner Christine Nixon into the exploitation of Australia’s visa system.
The home affairs minister, Clare O’Neil, said the next steps would aim to restore integrity in Australia’s international education system and protect students from harm.
“The party is over, the rorts and loopholes that have plagued this system will be shut down,” she said.
“This is the first of many announcements this week to restore integrity to international education and to our migration system.”
On Monday, the federal government announced risk indicators would be built into the international education system to better ensure private providers comply with regulations. This will include better analysis of student attendance.
The Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000 would also be amended to strengthen the existing fit and proper provider test.
The amendment will strengthen standards needed for providers to gain and hold registration, while also cracking down on cross-ownership of businesses between education providers and agents.
In addition, agent commissions on student transfers would be prohibited to remove incentives for agents to poach of students already in Australia.
Earlier this year, a parliamentary inquiry heard Australia’s international student system had become a “Ponzi scheme” in which overseas agents were paid bonuses to lure foreign students with the promise of full-time work.
To reduce the number of people rorting the system, providers will be given greater access to agent performance data, including student completion rates and visa rejection rates.
The government is yet to publish the Nixon review, but it is expected to report serious integrity issues in the sector.
The review was ordered after the Nine newspapers reported failures in Australia’s migration system, including allegations of human trafficking, foreign worker exploitation and visa scams.
The education minister, Jason Clare, said one of the review’s priorities was increasing monitoring and compliance in the sector.
“International students are back, but so are the shonks seeking to exploit them and undermine our international education system,” he said.
“That’s why we are acting.
“Students from around the world choose to come here first and foremost for the high-quality education we offer … the government will outline further measures to crack down on dodgy and unscrupulous players in the international education sector in the next few days.”
Last week, almost all of Australia’s top universities dropped in the Times Higher Education’s 2024 global rankings, described as a “red-light warning” as the appeal of studying in Australia weakened during Covid lockdowns.
In late August, the government announced other reforms, including the removal of a loophole used to move students who had been in the country less than six months to new providers for work instead of study.
There has been a sharp uptake in concurrent enrolments this year, with recent investigations finding 17,000 had been created, compared with about 10,500 for the same period in 2019 and 2022 combined.
The government announced it would also consider suspending “high-risk” education providers, preventing them from recruiting international students.
The minister for skills and training, Brendan O’Connor, said announcements on the Vocational Education and Training regulator would be made in coming days.
