recorded<\/a> one of the highest student visa refusal rates over the past year and generated the largest share of visa fee income from rejected applications.<\/p>\nAzeem argued that visa policy should focus on problematic behaviour rather than entire nationalities.<\/p>\n
\u201cPolicies should target the problems, the risk \u2013 not the nationalities,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He maintained Pakistan was not among the leading countries for asylum claims, had high completion rates, and that issues such as provider switching were not unique to Pakistani students.<\/p>\n
\u201cVisa hopping is not the problem of Pakistani students,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is the problem of policy, not the students.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zaidi echoed those concerns, warning that broad labels risked damaging Australia\u2019s reputation among future generations of students.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo hundred and sixty million people cannot be labelled as high risk,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have to identify the problems and involve the stakeholders before making these decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite their criticisms, the panel repeatedly stressed that Australia remained one of the world\u2019s leading education destinations and that rebuilding confidence was entirely achievable.<\/p>\n
Mahmood pointed to Murdoch University as an example of an institution investing in local expertise rather than relying solely on compliance systems.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have identified the potential of the market,\u201d he said. \u201cYou need people on the ground who understand the system and can identify genuine students.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zaidi urged Australian institutions to build deeper, long-term partnerships with trusted education agents and universities in Pakistan rather than treating recruitment as a transactional exercise.<\/p>\n
\u201cUntil you build trusted relationships with institutions and qualified agents in Pakistan, you will continue facing these challenges,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Azeem similarly called on Australia to move beyond what he described as \u201cseasonal recruitment\u201d and instead invest in long-term engagement with the market.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe UK took time to build a long-term relationship with Pakistan,\u201d he said. \u201cAustralia has to stop seasonal recruitment and start building long-term relationships.\u201d<\/p>\n
Malik argued Australia\u2019s academic reputation had never been the problem. Instead, rebuilding confidence depended on a more predictable and transparent system.<\/p>\n
\u201cAustralia is definitely relevant today,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut currently it is not competitive. If these obstacles are reduced, Australia will become competitive again. It won\u2019t just benefit universities financially \u2013 it will benefit both countries through the brilliant minds that Pakistan has to offer.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At The PIE Live Asia Pacific 2026, Australian universities and policymakers were urged to rethink their engagement with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":844532,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,310288,1735,44,15299,416461],"class_list":["post-844531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-universities","tag-international-students","tag-news","tag-pakistan","tag-pakistani-students"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=844531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/844532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=844531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=844531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=844531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}