Australia Replaces MD107 with MD111 to Consider Enrolment Cap for International Students in 2025

Australia has been in the news for tightening the screw on International Student Visas under its national planning level (NPL) for the last couple of years. The NPL stated that there would be a cap of 270,000 international student visas across different educational sectors, and visas were distributed among universities, vocational institutions and colleges based on reputation and thus suffered under Ministerial Direction 107, as it could not get the desired number of students due to being in the lower rungs of the institutional hierarchy.

They have now gone away with the law and replaced it with Ministerial Direction 111, which will give priority to institutions till 80% of their capacity is filled, and after that, it will put the university in the back of the queue and follow the standard enrolment process. This mainly applies to the offshore visas and would be overseen by PRISM, the international enrollment management wing of the Australian education system. They will recognize offshore visa requests to education providers who have not reached their priority mark of 80% and speedup the process for that provider diligently. This will provide all institutes with some impetus and breathing space, as compared to the last directive, as the directive looks to bring minimum sustainability for most of the institutions.

It's also noteworthy that there is a focus on offshore applications, and it's unclear how much priority is given to onshore visa applications. Providers should also be aware that MD111 does not cover onshore visa applications, according to an explanation from English Australia. Applications for onshore visas will not be prioritized. These students currently have wait times of four to six months on average. The industry anticipates that MD111 will result in longer wait times; nevertheless, Department of Home Affairs pointed out that these applications should not be affected because MD111 does not apply to them. The statement leaves open to the question of how much immigration authorities will regard those indicative caps as hard caps on enrollment at a particular institution.

That seems to suggest that the preliminary caps given to each Australian provider in accordance with the NPL, as well as the overall cap set under the NPL (that fresh visa issuances will be restricted to 270,000 across the nation in 2025),have now become standards in which the Australian government are going to dispose of requests for student visas.

While some have welcomed this move with open arms, others remain skeptical about it, as there is a lot of subjectivity involved with the law and no clarity for the people who are not invested in the close quarters of the field. Experts also believe that the constant changing of the norms, the uncertain image Australia has created for potential incumbents, will hugely impact the international market. All in all, we will have to wait and see how this implementation plays out and what significant impact it creates, for now, we are in unknown territory.