Waiting game resumes for Australia-bound PhDs

International doctoral candidates are fuming over Australia’s intransigent border policies, after a surge in visa processing proved short-lived.

In March, scores of PhD students from China, India and Iran were overjoyed to be granted visas for postgraduate research study, in a sign that hundreds of newly recruited visa-processing staff were finally clearing a backlog of applications that had left students languishing for years.

Those hopes now appear forlorn, with visa determinations returning to a trickle. A member of a Chinese WeChat group of more than 300 students said visa issuances had “dropped dramatically” after a 10 March surge, with no grants at all by early April.

The applicant said that of 258 group members who had provided details, just 33 had been granted visas. The median waiting time so far was about 50 weeks, with over 10 group members already delayed by at least 20 months. Complaints to the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) elicited “generic” instructions to keep waiting.

A dozen Indian doctoral candidates said they had been waiting up to a year for their applications to be determined. DHA responses to their queries explained that “requirements for mandatory health, character and national security checks…are undertaken by other agencies and can take some time”.

Physicist Tamal Mukherjee said he had declined a PhD offer from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, preferring to study abroad, and had been waiting nine months for a visa to study at Sydney’s Macquarie University. He said 20 doctoral candidates in his WhatsApp group had been granted visas in March and early April, but he knew of only two approvals since then.

“In March, we were encouraged when the DHA cleared a substantial number,” he said. “The delay has resurfaced, and we find ourselves still waiting for a resolution.”

One DHA response to his complaints says “a time frame for finalising your application is unable to be provided”. Two others say “some cases may take several months to finalise”. A fourth says 90 per cent of visa applications in his subclass “are assessed within 15 months”.

An Iranian doctoral candidate said some compatriots faced “the imminent loss of their hard-earned scholarships” due to visa processing time frames of up to 40 months. Others had given up and applied elsewhere, only to be granted Australian visas after starting PhD studies in the UK, Canada, Finland, Norway or the US.

DHA statistics show that more than 1,000 visas were granted to offshore postgraduate research students in March, compared with a monthly average of about 370 over the previous year. Almost 80 per cent of the March visas went to applicants in China, India, Iran and Pakistan. Since then, visa grants to doctoral students have more than halved.

Times Higher Education understands that the March surge reflects patterns of visa demand. With priority given in earlier months to visas for study with set starting dates, such as undergraduate and master’s courses, the DHA was temporarily able to focus on visas for postgraduate research.

A pandemic-era relaxation of rules limiting foreigners’ online study has now expired, and Australian universities are no longer allowing international PhD students to commence their studies remotely.

University of Sydney academic Clement Canonne said that while visa delays were particularly distressing for students, they harmed Australian universities and the nation as a whole. “It’s like shooting oneself in the foot. These people are qualified…to conduct the research that is necessary for the future – things [identified] as national priorities. The research is not going to do itself.”

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com