SYDNEY, Oct. 28 (Xinhua) --- Australia is set to roll out revised migration systems to capitalize on China and greater Asia' s highly-skilled population as part of the initialization of a critical White Paper released in Sydney.
Australia's Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Chris Bowen, said Australia needed to nurture an educated, productive work force to drive the Australian economy through the "Asian Century".
"Even with the Government's unprecedented investment in tertiary education and up-skilling Australians, we need migrants who bring their specialist skills to Australia," Mr Bowen said. " The Australia in the Asian Century White Paper highlights the exciting opportunities for Australia's growth as our neighbors further build trade and industrial strength."
However, Mr Bowen was beaten to the punch, with Australia's state Premiers Mr Barry O'Farrell, Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu and Queensland Premier Campbell Newman jointly sending to the Prime Minister Julia Gillard arguing for the Vocational Education and Training (VET) providers to be treated in the same way as universities.
New post-study work rights for international students should be extended to the VET sector to help maintain Australia's booming tertiary education sector, NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell said on Friday. Mr O'Farrell said higher education VET providers such as TAFE NSW can offer high quality undergraduate degrees and qualifications.
"International education is a 6- billion- Australian- dollar industry for NSW our second largest in terms of exports," Mr O' Farrell said. "Our tertiary education sector is respected around the world and we need to ensure the standing of high-quality, low- risk VET providers like TAFE NSW don't suffer through changes to visa arrangements."
From next year the Commonwealth is introducing new post-study work visa arrangements for graduates who have completed a bachelor, masters or doctoral degree. The new arrangement will provide graduating students with access to post-study work rights for two, three or four years respectively. This will see a welcome increase in the length of post-study work visa for bachelor, masters and doctoral students by one year in most cases.
Seven of the top 10 source countries in Australia's 2011-12 migration program are in the Asian region: India, China, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, South Korea and Vietnam.
The Indian sub-continent is Australia's largest source region of migrants, providing 23 percent of the migration program, while 18.3 percent of migrants come from the north of Asia.
"More than a quarter of our nation's migrants were born in an Asian nation and nearly 1.5 million Australians are fluent in one or more Asian languages, including Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Hindi, Punjabi, Indonesian, Korean, Tagalog and Japanese," Mr Bowen said. Tourism from Asia injects billions of dollars into the Aussie economy every year and new "streamlined visa processes" will encourage more people from the region to consider Australia as a destination of choice.
"We need to be able to take advantage of the expected increase in regional travel across Asia and the subsequent emerging tourist markets," Mr Bowen said.
To facilitate this, the Department of Immigration and Citizenship is expanding its network of service and delivery partners to support online visa lodgement, multiple entry visas and longer visa validity periods.
Minister Bowen said visitors from China are of particular focus. "And the 2011 Memorandum of Understanding to strengthen tourism cooperation between the two countries will support a growing travel market," Mr Bowen added.
Students from abroad boost Australia's economy by billions every year. In 2011, there were more than 550,000 international student enrolments (77 percent from within the Asian region) in Australian education institutions.