Melbourne: Two Australian universities have announced bans on granting admissions to students from some Indian states citing concerns over a rise in fraudulent visa applications, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.
In separate notifications, Federation University in Victoria and Western Sydney University in New South Wales have instructed education agents to not consider students from Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir.
One in four applications from these 5 states and 1 union territory is deemed “fraudulent” or “non-genuine” by Australia’s Department of Home Affairs, the report stated.
The ban was announced before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s three-day visit to Australia (May 22-25).
Federation University, in a letter on May 19, said that they have observed a significant increase in the proportion of visa applications being refused from some Indian regions by the Department of Home Affairs.
“We hoped this would prove to be a short-term issue but it is now clear there is a trend emerging,” the letter said.
Western Sydney University informed agents that they could no longer recruit students from Punjab, Haryana and Gujarat as a large number of Indian students who started courses in 2022 had dropped out.
“The regions within India that have been identified as presenting the highest attrition risk are Punjab, Haryana and Gujarat,” the university stated on May 8.
“Due to the urgency of this matter, the university has decided to pause recruitment from these regions in India, effective immediately,” the letter further said.
