To: Department of Home Affairs Australia

Don’t let Coronavirus Ban affect your rights to apply for 485/189/190 due to online study.

To change the regulation so that there is no impact on affected overseas students by way of legislative instrument to protect any student who opts to study online as a result of circumstances beyond their control preventing them from returning to Australia.

Why is this important?

On 1st February, The Hon. Scott Morrison’s newly announced Travel Ban had prevented over 90,000 Chinese International students currently in China from returning to Australia to commence or resume their studies.

Education providers have offered to defer studies but many educational institutions are encouraging students to study online in China.

We are concerned that universities and educational institutions are seeking to protect their finances at the expense of students who are not being made aware of the consequences of online study.

Online study may significantly affect international students' rights to future graduate visas or permanent visa as they may not be eligible to meet a criterion of “2 years full time study in Australia”.

We are partners at Global Education and Immigration Centre. Immigration lawyer Mr. Rhys Strang and Registered Migration Agent Mrs. Grace Shen have represented international students for their immigration matters for more than 20 years.

We are seeking to raise awareness of the issues with a view to convincing the Australian government to change the regulation so that there is no impact on affected overseas students by way of legislative instrument to protect any student who opts to study online as a result of circumstances beyond their control preventing them from returning to Australia.

We need your support so that the exceptions are made to the Migration Regulations so as not to discriminate against students who are willing to study in Australia but are prevented from doing so.

It is important that this issue be brought to the attention of lawmakers as soon as possible so that student’s rights are not subordinated to the profits of education providers.