KIWI IMMIGRATION NEWS !

To give a boost to Kiwi's $ 2.3 billion industry, immigration minister announced important changes to existing student visa rules.

The changes, which will begin taking effect from 25 July 2011, will:

• strengthen student visa requirements and conditions (without introducing additional compliance for good quality education providers)
• facilitate access to study and training for genuine students, and
• facilitate pathways to work and residence for highly skilled graduates.

More criteria will be introduced to determine whether students are genuinely here to study, such as ensuring education providers have assessed students’ competencies for the course before issuing an offer of place.

• Students will be required to attend their courses at all times, as required, unless they have genuine reasons for their absence.
• Students’ progress will be primarily determined by their education provider and assessed against the education providers’ own academic progress policies.
• Students will need to satisfy Immigration New Zealand (INZ) that they are supplying genuine evidence of funds for maintenance.
• Requiring those who provide sponsorship and financial undertakings to:
  > be either friends or relatives (if they are individuals), and
  > genuinely intend to support the student and hold sufficient funds for each student they are acting for.
• More flexibility for genuine students will be introduced by extending sponsorship eligibility to organisations or government agencies, and allowing third parties who provide financial undertakings offshore to continue with onshore applications.
• INZ, when issuing student visas, will have more powers to ensure that students only study at good quality education providers.
• The validity period of medical and police certificates for PhD students, their partners and dependants will be extended from 24 to 36 months, the same as for fee-paying foreign students.
• Work visa holders will no longer need to obtain a variation of conditions to undertake training authorised by their employer as part of their job.
• Work visas will be available to the partners of students studying postgraduate courses and courses on the Long Term Skills Shortage List (LTSSL) at bachelor’s degree and above, rather than any students studying courses on the LTSSL.

Changes to study to work visas

• Students will need to study in New Zealand for at least two years to qualify for Study to Work visas, with a shorter period required for people who have gained postgraduate qualifications or credit-transferred bachelor’s degrees.
• Students who obtain a second, higher qualification at bachelor’s degree or postgraduate level will be able to obtain a second Graduate Job Search visa.