Politics

In The Middle Of A Deadly Second Wave, Indian International Students Have Lost All Hope

There are nearly 13,000 Indian student visa holders desperately waiting to study back in Australia.

by Millie Roberts  6 May 2021
International Students India

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Three semesters into her Masters of ICT, Preet Kaur received news that flipped her world upside down.

Her mother back in Punjab, India was terminally ill, and didn’t have much time left. Wanting to spend her last days by her side, Kaur flew home in March last year. She hasn’t been able to return to Australia since.

She describes the one-and-a-half years spent at the University of the Sunshine Coast as “amazing”, and particularly liked her teachers, the hands-on classes, and campus life.

“I loved to spend time in the university because of the environment,” the 23-year-old told Junkee. “I was more focused on my studies. Life in Brisbane was amazing. I must say, I learnt many things.”

Kaur has been trying to get back to complete her degree for over a year. She’s one of 12,740 student visa holders from India currently locked out at the moment.

Now, in the middle of a deadly pandemic surge, Indian international students are more desperate than ever to return, not only for their education, but for their health and safety as well.

The second coronavirus wave India is enduring at the moment has shut down all aspects of everyday life, with the latest stats reflecting 20 million cases so far. International students on subclass 485 graduate visas and subclass 500 student visas are clinging onto hope as the situation in India becomes more dire.

They acknowledge the safety of onshore Australians, as well as returning overseas citizens, and the need for a worldwide vaccine rollout as a first priority — but feel kept out the loop and sent in circles when it comes to clarifying their uni fees, timebomb visas, and the opportunity to study with their peers in Australia once more.

The Bureau of Statistics reported that 87,050 higher education students worldwide entered Australia in February 2020. A year later, that number was only 130 — a 99.85 percent decrease.

Gurwinder Singh is a 22-year-old also from Punjab, studying a Bachelor of Business at Canberra’s Alpha Institute. He began studying on-campus in our capital city two years ago, but like Kaur, left Australia a year later in March.

He described the joy of being able to attend his brother’s wedding in India that was soon clouded by frustration when the pandemic caused international border closures and trapped him back home.

“Study plays a vital role in my life,” he told Junkee. “I want to complete my degree in Australia because it will give me a wider range of opportunities and a brighter future.”

A government report in November 2020 examining how Australian university students fared with e-Learning cited 41% of respondents had ‘IT problems’ relating to Zoom and slow internet speeds.

A similar study in February this year found that nearly 50% of remote university-level students in India do not have internet access at home, thanks to infrastructure, electricity, and device access.

Kaur personally travelled 30 kilometers from her rural town to the city everyday to watch lectures and complete assignments on time. Despite the hefty commute, it still wasn’t enough.

“There are subjects which can’t be delivered online,” she said. “There are a number of software which we need access for our assignments [that] are all paid. It was accessible on campus, but now we can’t.”

Now, with the rising death tolls reaching the hundreds of thousands, and social curbs in place, she is unable to leave her house at all.

“The university didn’t want to give any suspension on studies,” she says. “They are forcing online studies. We have written to our university for support but they haven’t replied.”

Eventually, Kaur had to take leave of absence as mental health concerns became too much to bear.

“Online studies can be an alternative but it can’t be a permanent solution during this pandemic for students, especially international students who have paid huge amounts” of fees upfront, she said.

Singh is in a similar boat, saying he feels “highly dejected and stressed as [he] spent hefty amounts of money getting an Australian education, as well as my time wasted.”

He says was forced to defer because he says his college refused to provide access to online classes due to the time difference between India and Australia.

Coronavirus dealt a $30 billion blow to Australia’s economy last year, with Indian students forming the second highest portion of our intake, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

Saad Ahmad from Pakistan has been watching the devastating loss of life over the border. He keeps in touch with his Indian peers via WhatsApp to check in and share their stories.

Having graduated from a Bachelor of Professional Accounting at the Holmes Institute in December 2019, Ahmad celebrated by visiting his family in Faisalabad a month later.

He was hoping to come back to Melbourne — where his car, important documents, certificates and general belongings are — for a Masters degree straight after.

Ahmad says a lot of Indian and Pakistani students want clarity on where they stand if the borders reopen when their visas are no longer valid.

“I know so many people who are in a similar situation, and a lot of them have already had their visas expired,” the 25-year-old said to Junkee. “At least extend our visas which we have paid for.”

“I think it’s a reasonable request to ask for a visa extension because this pandemic is not our fault and most of us already have a life in Australia. We have been paying bills from overseas for so long now,” he said.

The students Junkee spoke to all describe the opportunity to study here, and being granted a visa, as ‘once-in-a-lifetime’.

At a bare minimum, all Ahmad, Kaur and Singh want is some form of timeline from the Australian government of when they can expect to come back.

State governments have been slowly drafting up plans to eventually re-introduce international students. A proposal in Victoria suggested an intake of over 100 students per week beginning later this month, while NSW is aiming for October. It’s unclear whether Indian international students will now be considered in the mix as the situation there continues to worsen.

Feeling abandoned, some Indian international students have taken to the streets to have their voices heard, including a protest in front of the Australian High Commission in New Delhi back in March.

They’re now limited to Twitter to call out for help, share resources, and vent their grievances while observing personal lockdowns.

Singh is optimistic he’ll be back in Canberra once the situation is reassessed after the travel ban ends on May 15.

Yet only two months ago, Education Minister Alan Tudge told attendees at an Australian India Business Council webinar that the chances were slim and dependent on the vaccine rollout, SBS reported.

“My hope is that certainly from next year we will be starting to be close to being normal again and having significant numbers of international students to be returning, but there are a lot of ‘ifs’ to get to that point in time,” Tudge said.

In the interim, the group continues to lose faith that they’ll see out their degrees on campus before their visas run out, with each pandemic-related blow.

“We are hopeless now,” Kaur says. “We believe we have chosen the wrong country for our higher education. No one cares about us.”

Junkee has reached out to The Department of Home Affairs for comment.