International Students may now return to Australia: An announcement done by the NSW Government

Under the Government of New South Wales operated Pilot Program, a total of 250 students from the foreign countries each fortnight will now be allowed to land in Australia, starting from the second half of this year. At the beginning, they will be required to stay at the purpose-built student accommodation facilities and will be required to follow all quarantine protocols as are mandatory to be followed by other returning foreign travellers.

Brief Highlights of the News Update:

- NSW to enable 250 international students to travel to Sydney each fortnight starting from July - This new decision will not impact the frequency and number of individuals that are returning back to the state of New South Wales from the commercial flights, as being confirmed by the NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet - Retuning international students will be mandated to stay during their initial days in Australia at the quarantine facilities

While speaking in Sydney last week, the Treasurer of the New South Wales, that is, Dominic Perrottet affirmed that this new announcement will not impact the total number of people that are already in the process of returning back to the state from the other kinds of commercial flights.

Therefore, the new step won’t impact the return of native Australians and the government said that they have plans to continue to bring back 3,000 individuals every week, which is a number far greater than other states.

Dominic Perrottet further added that the taxpayers within Australia won’t be funding for the accommodation of the returning foreign students. The complete plan is however subject to approval by the federal government of Australia.

While all those international students that were waiting to return back to Australia from India completely welcomed this decision, they also said that the announcement came a bit late than was expected.

Arvind Bhatia, who should have returned back to Sydney in the month of March last year said that the Government of Australia should have taken these decisions much earlier. This is certainly because his student visa is going to expire in the month of September next year and since it’s the last semester in progress for his Bachelor in Accounting program, he is not sure whether he would be able to return back to Australia due to the limited cap being applied of that of 250 students that will be allowed to return back from all across the world. Further, he added that since the Australia Government has already extended their visa once and therefore it is uncertain whether they will do that again.

Jitesh Agarwal, who enrolled with a Victorian University and it yet to make his first entry in Australia also told that other states across Australia should also start following the policy and procedure adopted by the New South Wales and bring back all those students who are stuck in the international countries.

He received his student visa in the month of March, 2020 to attend Masters in Accounting program, however two days later the government of Australia closed the international borders in the wake of pandemic. He further informed that he has already completed two semesters via online medium and his visa is going to expire in the month of December 2022 and he too is not sure whether he would be able to return back before the end of this academic program. Still, the step taken by NSW Government is welcomed by students like him.  

The education industry alone in the state had generated AUS 14.6 billion in the year 2019. The arrival of the overseas students therefore could bring a positive impact to the hospitality and retail sector of the state, as these are the two main sectors where international students work in large numbers and are also those sectors that have been struggling with the shortage of the labor force since lockdown.

Mr. Perrottet added that international students are perceived as the second most valuable export for the Government of New South Wales and we need to do all what we all can do to help these foreign students return back to the country and revive the impacted sectors as fast as possible.

Overall, there are a total of 250,000 international students that pursue their studies in New South Wales every year, and these students directly support more than 95,000 local jobs at the time when pandemic was not there. In case we will not act fast, these students can return back to some other overseas countries and it will then take decades for the enterprise to recover.

In order to plan things in an appropriate manner, the Government of New South Wales has developed a pilot program which is supported by NSW Police and NSW Health Sector which will allow and support the 250 international students that will return back to Sydney each fortnight starting from the mid-year. In a gradual approach this will allow the government to closely manage and ensure that the health of the local community is not affected.

The Government of New South Wales has estimated that the overall impact of the closed international borders which includes overseas students and tourism, could be more than AUS dollars 1.5 billion every month for the NSW.