International students have rediscovered Australia with streamlined processing and an improving economy driving the strongest year on year increase in Visa applications for four years.
Immigration Department statistics show total student visa lodgements increased by 7.1 per cent in the three months to the end of September 2013. Offshore student visa lodgements increased by 27.6 per cent with Higher Education visas accounting for 42.1 per cent of total lodgements.
READ – AUSTRALIAN STUDENT VISA PROCESS STREAMLINED
Total student visa grants increased by 13.6 per cent in the quarter compared with the same period in the previous year.
Nearly 19 out of every 20 applications for a student was accepted. As at 30 September 2013 there were 346 965 international student visa holders in Australia.
The top five markets for international students all showed improvement with China (up 4.9%), India (up 7.3%), Vietnam (up 41.6%) and Brazil (up 17.6%) and Nepal (up 28.9%) accounting for half of all applications.
Greg Evans, deputy chief executive of Universities Australia, told The Australian the figures reflected “both improved regulatory and visa conditions provided by government as well as the tireless efforts of our universities”.
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