Foreign Nurses in Australia in Deportation Fear

Many foreign student nurses fear deportation from Australia.

Hundreds of foreign migrants working as student nurses in Australia are fearing deportation after the Nursing and Midwifery Board raised minimum scores for English language testing.

The student nurses, mainly from countries such as India and Pakistan, have migrated to Australia to study nursing in the hope of securing permanent residency. Many of them will be offered employment as nursing is currently on the Australian Immigration Department’s (DIAC) Skilled Occupation List, yet because of the change in minimum English testing scores, many fear they could be sent back home.

The DIAC recently announced that English language regulations for migrants were to get stricter, and in response the Nursing and Midwifery Board have raised the minimum score for the IELTS from 6.5 to 7.

The branch secretary of the Australian Nursing Federation (ANF), Lisa Fitzpatrick, criticised the change saying: “The goal posts have been changed on these students.” She stated that many students would now be in financial difficulties trying to pay back the loans given them to allow them to study in Australia. They came under the old rules that required a minimum of 6.5 in the IELTS scoring system to be told that is now no longer enough.

The changes came into effect along with lots of other changes to the immigration policy on July 1^st, but the students claim they knew nothing about it until it happened. It affects all those students who have not yet been given a permanent resident visa. Many students will have completed their course, bagged good job offers for an occupation on the SOL but face being sent home because their English is not up to the high standards now being demanded of them. Many students say they simply don’t have the time to take additional English language studies – or the money to finance such studies.

The Nursing and Midwifery Board justified the new rules by telling The Australian: “The English language standard is set at a level to ensure that all nurses are midwives are able to communicate effectively – verbally and in writing, with their patients and with other healthcare professionals,”

If you need advice on Australian visas or if you want to discuss the new changes then join our embrace community for advice and support.

Love Australia? Let us keep you informed...

• Join the Embrace Australia community today. Have your questions answered by our experts, start your own blog, get vital migration information and gain valuable insight from those who have already made the journey.
• Subscribe to our RSS Feed and have all our daily news and features delivered straight to your news reader.
• Join our mailing list -