Visa for sale: We'll say you did the hours

July 26, 2008

... the purchase of bogus work experience documents is the latest lurk in the vocational education and training sector.

... the number of overseas students enrolled in cookery and hairdressing courses had trebled during the past few years.

Private vocational colleges were increasingly using the federal Government's Migration Occupations in Demand List to promote hairdressing and cooking as what one disillusioned former college teacher described as "the easiest, cheapest and fastest way for students to get permanent residency"...

"Students who have failed a subject on Thursday are reassessed on Friday and deemed competent," says the disillusioned former college teacher...

Melbourne migration lawyer Michael Clothier says: "I have so many clients abandon their courses in maths and science to take up hairdressing and commercial cookery because its easier to get permanent residence... to the 'arse end of the world'..."