Student visa extension? Technically speaking you can’t extend a student visa! To continue in Australia, you will need to apply for a new student visa before your current visa expires.
Here are some points to take into consideration:
Work limitation
This is commonly known as visa condition 8105 – work limitation. This condition means that you must not engage in any work before your course of study commences.
You are also not permitted to work more than 40 hours per fortnight when you are in Australia when your course of study is in session.
You may work full-time when your course in not in session e.g. during your school break or once you complete your course.
Working between courses and student visas
Between ‘student visa 1’ and ‘student visa 2’ you are not able to work before your course of study commences or you may continue working between courses and visas if the following applies:
- you are applying for a new student visa to complete your previous qualifications.
- you are on a visa associated with a package of courses and you may continue working between courses.
Acceptable gaps between courses in a package
If you are applying for packaged courses, you may do so provided no more than 2 calendar months (i.e. 8 Week) elapse between courses during the standard teaching year and no more than four months elapse between courses outside of the standard academic year (i.e. Christmas break).
If you have finished your studies and have applied for a further student visa, the department should be flexible in applying the course gap policy when the gap is between visas.
For example, if you who have either finished your course part way through the academic year (June) or at the end of the academic year you will respectively be granted visas which are valid for 2 months after your course end date or to 15 March in the following year. In this situation, the you are entitled to remain in Australia for this period and will have up until the visa end date in which to apply for a further visa and therefore you may legitimately be in a situation where the gap between courses may be more than 2 months.
Changing Careers
It is very understandably that in a changing world a person may decide to change careers at some point in their life. This is also accepted by the department as long as you provide valid reasons as to why you have decided to change careers. Therefore, in this scenario the ‘Genuine temporary entrant (GTE) requirement’ is very important.
The GTE requirement is an integrity assessment that all applicants for a student visa must provide to substantiate that they are coming to Australia temporarily to gain a quality education and intend to use the student visa program for its intended purpose only and not as a channel to gain residency in Australia.
Changing courses – transferring to a lower AQF level or non-AQF course
You must maintain enrolment in a course at the same level or higher AQF level for which you were granted the visa. Transferring to a lower AQF level course would result in a breach of condition 8202.
A breach of condition 8202 may result in your visa being considered for cancellation.
If you intend to transfer to a lower AQF level course, you must apply for another student visa and must not commence the lower-level course until you have been granted a new student visa.
Therefore, it is important to make the correct choice when apply your visa so you don’t face this issues going forward.
Visa Application Form – common mistakes
It is very important that you truthfully answer all the questions in the visa application form to the best of your knowledge as incorrect and misleading information can lead to a potential PIC 4020.
If you have been accused of providing false or misleading information or “bogus documents” to the Department of Home Affairs (DoHA), you are at immediate risk of not only a visa refusal based on these strict regulations, but in addition you may receive a 3 or 10-year ban from Australia.
What makes the PIC 4020 regulations so challenging is that DoHA is not required to “prove” that you have provided false or misleading information or bogus document(s), they only need to have a reasonable belief that you have done so.
Common mistakes:
- Not mentioning all employment history both overseas and in Australia.
- Not mentioning you are in a relationship.
- Not mentioning criminal record overseas and/or in Australia.
- Not mentioning previous visa refusals.
Why use a Migration Agent to assist with your application?
We are qualified to help you with your visa application and can deal with the Department of Home Affairs (the Department) for you.
We can explain which visa options are available to you, and recommend a suitable option.
We can prepare documents for your visa application.
We can lodge a well-prepared application with all required documents, which can make it easier and faster to get a decision from the Department.
We can contact the Department to discuss or ask questions about your application.
We are also qualified to give you legal advice and assistance, such as helping you prepare an application for a court to review a decision made about your visa application.
