00:09:14 · Martijn van de Veen
[00:09:14] S3: The rapid rise in student visa rejection rates across prominent study destinations has a major impact not just on the students, but equally on the schools and agencies handling their recruitment. Higher rejection rates have resulted in new pre paid student fee management policies within the sector in response to the increased financial pressures on both schools and agents. Now it appears that higher rejection rates have also contributed to some high profile school and agency closures in recent months, partly because schools and agencies relied on projected visa approval rates, all of which underscores how uncertainty around visa processing affects our sector and its stakeholders. In this episode's main topic, we will take a closer look at the challenges in the visa process, such as processing delays and rejection rates, and explore their impact on educators, agents, and students. We'll also discuss insights and best practices to mitigate the risks associated with visa processing uncertainties. Joining myself and Craig for this discussion are Michal Sestak, Managing Director and Principal Migration Agent at AustraliaOnline and Shawn Silverstone, director international marketing and recruitment at Coquitlam School District in British Columbia, Canada. Gentlemen, welcome. Great to have you on this episode on this very, very important topic. Guess the best way to start is always with a brief introduction of yourself, and perhaps you can also highlight a little bit your affinity and experience with today's topic. So Shawn, may I start with you?
00:10:45 · Shawn Silverstone, Martijn van de Veen
[00:10:45] S1: Thank you, Martijn. So my name, yes, is Shawn Silverstone. I'm the of international marketing recruitment for the Coquitlam School District located in beautiful British Columbia, Canada. School District is about thirty minutes from Downtown Vancouver, and we've had a history of, supporting international students since 1999 as part of the school district. Myself, I've worked in the sector for over twenty years, working at a public post secondary school and, two public, k to 12 institutions as well. I have a definite, love for international education, having many friends around the world that I've met as part of this job and really so love supporting students and seeing their ability to come and be part of the Canadian education system and then thrive and hearing about their success stories in the future is always a wonderful part of this job. So thank you again for allowing me to be part of this important topic. [00:11:40] S3: Wonderful. Thank you so much. I think we share that love for international education. Don't we, Michal?
00:11:40 · Martijn van de Veen, Michal Sestak
[00:11:40] S3: Wonderful. Thank you so much. I think we share that love for international education. Don't we, Michal? [00:11:46] S0: Yes. We we... Yes. We do. Good morning from Whistler, Canada at the moment on my holidays. As Martijn already mentioned, my name is Michal Sestak. I'm the, managing director and principal migration agent at AustraliaOnline. I'm also board member of ICEF, which is an education agent association in Australia. And we're working a lot with Australian government on obviously the topics of international education. I became an education agent in 1993 and in 2001 completed the Korean migration law and obviously became migration agent and been working in that field ever since. We have offices across Latin America, Europe, Asia and Australia. I'm very passionate about the international education because I believe that every person has the right for education and education is what's going to propel the humanity, our humanity and society to the next level. I think education plays a pivotal role in that. So thank you guys for having me here today, and I'll be happy to share all my expertise from the last two years, but also from the last thirty years.
00:11:46 · Michal Sestak, Martijn van de Veen
[00:11:46] S0: Yes. We we... Yes. We do. Good morning from Whistler, Canada at the moment on my holidays. As Martijn already mentioned, my name is Michal Sestak. I'm the, managing director and principal migration agent at AustraliaOnline. I'm also board member of ICEF, which is an education agent association in Australia. And we're working a lot with Australian government on obviously the topics of international education. I became an education agent in 1993 and in 2001 completed the Korean migration law and obviously became migration agent and been working in that field ever since. We have offices across Latin America, Europe, Asia and Australia. I'm very passionate about the international education because I believe that every person has the right for education and education is what's going to propel the humanity, our humanity and society to the next level. I think education plays a pivotal role in that. So thank you guys for having me here today, and I'll be happy to share all my expertise from the last two years, but also from the last thirty years. [00:12:56] S3: Wonderful. Well, I'm sure Michal, we don't not only share the love, but also the passion for this industry. Now, as we're discussing visa rejection rates and other processing challenges, let's just start by painting a picture of what that is, particularly in Canada and Australia, and Michal what, what are, for you in in the case of Australia, I imagine, what are some of the main challenges and main issues, especially when you compare it to previous years? Why is this now such an important topic?
00:13:25 · Michal Sestak
[00:13:25] S0: It is important because Australia is experiencing unprecedented levels of student visa refusals. There's a debate about what is the main cause, and and obviously, every person has his own opinion. From my experience, politics plays a major role. If you look at pre COVID, we had a steady growth of international students to Australia from pretty much all over the world. Static, controlled, managed well. COVID hit, borders closed, a lot of employers lost staff, the production went down, I guess, all over the world. And then as soon as the Australian government opened the borders, there was an influx of international students because that's what the government allowed to happen. So you can, for example, we can look at a good example of a country, in Latin America. Pre COVID, we had about 5,500 to 6,000 students come in on annual basis. After COVID, within the year of financial year 2023, we had twenty four thousand six hundred, which is a massive, massive increase. Right? And now the government seems to be penalizing Colombians by refusing their because there's too many of them in Australia, and they left their own room. Well, my question would be, why did they let them in in the first place? Because the government didn't really check anything. They opened the borders. Anybody can come. There was no integrity applied by the government. No one was checking financials. No one was checking any eligibility requirements, and so on and so forth. So it seems to me now that the government realized that they've probably, you know, haven't done the right thing to be put it nicely, and now they're trying to correct it. So you go from one extreme to another. So I think politics has a lot to do with it. I don't believe it... The clients are still the same. The requirements for studying Australia hasn't really changed. We have election coming up this year very soon in Australia, and obviously immigration is a topic for most governments around the world or western governments, but that still doesn't doesn't justify such a huge increases in these refusers. So my belief, it's just correcting the numbers back to normality rather than anything else.
00:15:43 · Martijn van de Veen
[00:15:43] S3: Right. So you're really saying it's it's politics that back in the day, no one was checking financials. You mentioned no one was checking any eligibility requirements, and they're now realizing that they may have not approached it in the right way and format, and that is now being correct or even perhaps overly corrected through politics. Is that something you see happening as well in Canada, or is this a different situation altogether, Shawn? I guess from, like, the perspective of the, you know,