Many could be sent back home as Australia raises its language standards.
Hundreds of foreign student nurses, mostly from India, face deportation from Australia for lack of proficiency in English. Nursing students face the threat of being sent back home after completing their courses and having landed lucrative job offers.
The students, estimated to be 400 from India, China, Thailand and Philippines, are in this situation, as according to them the authorities have changed “goalposts” midway, by raising minimum English language standards.
The Nursing and Midwifery Board raised the international English language testing system minimum score from 6.5, which means a student has to be more proficient and a competent speaker, to an academic 7 levels.
The Australians are following the UK in applying strict standards in written and spoken knowledge in English as a must for allowing work permits and citizenship.
The troubled students have received backing from the Australian Nursing Federation (ANF), which has described the change in registration requirements as an “absolute bureaucratic debacle”.
“The goalposts have been changed on these students,” ANF Victorian branch secretary Lisa Fitzpatrick told The Australian.
Fitzpatrick said the students would struggle to pay back loans on nursing salaries in India, and many had sold their homes to finance coming to Australia.
An Indian nursing student, Prince Joseph, said he had completed an 18-month course from Ballarat University, but to meet Australian standards for a registered nurse he will have to qualify under the eligibility programme as a good speaker or else face deportation.
“I spent around $25,000 to be a registered nurse right now, but there is no registration and no job. It is clear discrimination,” he said.
The tragedy struck students, who have just graduated mid-year or are about to graduate.
They said they received no notice of the change before it came into effect on July 1. Those whose visas are due to expire within weeks complain they don’t have the time to take additional language studies or sit the tests before being made to return home.
They will then have to re-apply for migration, despite many having job offers from hospitals and aged care homes desperately trying to find new staff amid a national shortage of nurses.
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