COALITION plans to give more international students post-study work rights could spark an enrolment boom in hospitality and graphic-arts diplomas, with the graduates monopolising entry-level jobs at a time of rising unemployment. Monash University demographer Bob Birrell, who blew the whistle on a migration-fuelled explosion in hairdressing and cooking courses under John Howard, said the government risked resurrecting the "bad old days" with a new international education boom motivated by work rights. He said this would add to an already serious problem in a labour market with little growth. Education Minister Christopher Pyne said this week he would review post-study work rights to help "repair" the international education industry. He said Labor had damaged the industry "by shutting down the capacity of international students to remain here post-study." The comments followed his election campaign commitment to act on post-study work rights. Dr Birrell said 800,000 temporary visa holders already had work rights, and they were cornering the jobs needed by those most vulnerable to unemployment. He said unskilled school-leavers faced "ferocious competition" from about 250,000 working holiday-makers each year. "They're finding highly competitive temporary entrants competing for (what) are often casual hospitality, manufacturing and service jobs," Dr Birrell said. That's why we get such high unemployment in young people. In 2011, then immigration minister Chris Bowen created a new visa allowing overseas higher-education graduates to work for up to four years in Australia. Vocational colleges want the same rights extended to their graduates, who can only work up to 18 months and then only if their qualifications are in recognised areas of skills shortage. Dr Birrell said this would open the door to people, particularly from the subcontinent, interested in working rather than studying. He said graphic arts and hospitality diplomas, which took a year or so, were "perfectly fitted to that." The International Education Association of Australia said the sector had learnt from its problems last decade. "There are so many levers now that can be applied to a dodgy college -- there is no remote chance of a return to opening the floodgates," said IEAA executive director Phil Honeywood. A spokesman for Mr Bowen, now interim Opposition Leader, said Labor had begun preparing reforms to give vocational colleges access to post-study work rights. If the Coalition is proposing to continue down this path, with the relevant integrity measures in place, then that is to be welcomed," he said. Universities Australia urged caution. "If we go back to the old policy settings we'll get the same outcomes," said UA chief executive Belinda Robinson.