International students will no longer be permitted to enroll in two courses concurrently in Australia for the first six months of their primary course of study. With this new regulation, "dodgy" educational providers who have been abusing the concurrent enrollment rules to entice students to transfer schools would face harsher penalties. As per the government, the recently implemented regulations aim to safeguard students from being exploited and maintain the integrity of the foreign education industry. Students with concurrent enrollments are unaffected by the new regulations. After the first six months of their primary course of study, students who wish to participate in a second course concurrently must get permission from their education provider.
Students will now need to wait until they have finished their first course for at least six months if they wish to pursue a second course in addition to their primary course. This can cause them to postpone their intentions to graduate and make it harder for them to get part-time employment so they can support themselves.
In addition, financial concerns may weigh on students' decisions to pursue a second course. Students could find it difficult to pay for two courses at once due to concurrent enrollment costs, which can be substantial, says Arora.
Students who intend to transfer to a different course after finishing their first six months of study will also be impacted by the new regulations. They might have to wait longer to transfer if they are unable to locate an appropriate concurrent course.
According to the Australian government, the new regulations are required to preserve the integrity of the global education market. Some claim that after coming to Australia, some students have been taking advantage of the concurrent enrollment system to transfer to less expensive vocational courses.