Students coming to Australia on a range of visas are sometimes referred to as “international students”, “overseas students” or “students on a visa”. When a school is considering the enrolment of a student on a visa, the school must check the nature, conditions and currency of the visa before deciding whether enrolment is appropriate and whether government recurrent funding is available.
While most schools will be able to enrol most students on a visa, there are important exceptions, including:
- most students holding their own 500 sub-class study visa may only enrol in a CRICOS-registered school
- except where the student is a dependent on a person holding a 500 sub-class visa or the student holds a 500 sub-class visa for a registered exchange program, in which case the student may enrol in any school
- students holding 600 sub-class tourist or visitor visas may only enrol for a period of three months.
To be able to enrol a CRICOS student, a school must be registered on CRICOS, the Commonwealth Register of International Courses and Overseas Students. To be registered on CRICOS, schools must apply to NESA.
The AISNSW Factsheet Enrolment and funding of students on visas provides more information about reporting and funding of international students, both for “Students on a visa” and “Overseas students”. It is particularly important to understand the different definitions that apply to the term “Overseas student” for School Census purposes versus CRICOS.
Schools must keep records of information used to determine the citizenship or visa status of the student at time of enrolment and throughout the period of enrolment. These might include documents verifying the citizenship or permanent residency of the student and/or a parent, a valid passport or a VEVO document.
You can access the factsheet about the enrolment and funding of overseas students here
