Genuine students welcome but no fraud, says Australian minister

Australian Assistant Minister for Citizenship, Customs, Multicultural Affairs and International Education Julian Hill called India an important partner in educational, economic, defence and cultural ties as he affirmed his country’s commitment to ensure safe and quality study experience for ‘genuine’ students.

In Amritsar to address an event hosted by the Association of Australian Education Representatives in India (AAERI) and promote ethical practices and responsible recruitment among education agents, Hill said, “We welcome international students, but the Australian students will still have diverse experience. We need to maintain universities for high quality, premium experience with a diverse cohort of international students. We need to remember that a majority of students who come to Australia for education have to go home. We are concerned about higher rates of frauds in applications, especially from this part of the world and we have zero tolerance for that,” he said.

He said nine universities in Australia are among the world’s top hundred and India is an important partner in the field of higher education. “Australia was the first country to accept PM Modi’s invitation to open foreign campuses here and two of our universities have also got UGC approval to do so,” he said.

"Back home, we now seek to balance with too many students treating student visa as a means to work. We are tightening the rules, students who breach the conditions can have their visas cancelled,” he said.

Hill described the recent reforms by capping student visa approvals and stricter evaluation process for student visas as strengthening the integrity of the sector, raising quality and having accountability. While recent reports state that in 2025, the number of new student applications in Australia dropped by over 26 per cent, course commencements also declined by 16 per cent.

Hill reiterated that India continues to be one of the most important and rapidly growing markets for Australian universities and vocational institutions. “Punjabi is the fastest growing language in Australia and fifth most spoken language back home. Hinduism and Sikhism are fastest growing faiths in migrant community that lives in Australia now. We want high quality, genuine students and we want to tell them it’s safe to come to Australia,” he said.

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