You’ll have seen us share work-and-study visa grant letters every week, and lately there has been a steady stream of good news on grants from outside Australia. Even so, some of you are still asking, for example:
- What is a work-and-study visa? How does work-and-study actually work?
- What kind of work can you find?
- What can you study?
- How far in advance should you prepare?
Okay, here we go! Today’s article will explain it all clearly!
Before You Apply
What is work-and-study?
Work-and-study, as the name suggests, means receiving an Australian education while working part-time outside class hours. As you build your professional skills and English, you can also use your spare time to earn money through part-time work. For a work-and-study programme, Australia is undoubtedly an excellent choice. Australia is one of the world’s most liveable countries, with wonderfully pleasant natural scenery — it is often called one of the most naturally beautiful countries in the world. Cities such as Melbourne and Sydney consistently rank near the top of the “world’s most liveable cities” lists.
In addition, Australia has one of the highest hourly wages in the world. In June 2020 the Fair Work Commission announced that the national minimum wage would rise by 1.75% from 1 July, reaching 753.80 AUD per week or 19.84 AUD per hour. Australia’s minimum hourly wage is now more than double that of the United States and almost double that of the United Kingdom.
As a nation built on migration, Australia is rich in resources but sparsely populated, with a shortage of labour, so the government has introduced a range of migration policies. However, Australian work visas are relatively hard to obtain, so the work-and-study student visa — with lower entry requirements, higher approval rates and the right to work — has become the choice for most people who want to study and work overseas.
Australian education is made up of three levels: primary education (primary school), secondary education (junior and senior secondary school), and higher education (universities and vocational colleges). Work-and-study generally refers to coming to Australia to study at a vocational college.
Take TAFE, for example: TAFE advanced diplomas are issued by the Australian government and are equivalent to China’s higher vocational education level. TAFE is also an important part of Australia’s higher education system — a vast education network jointly funded and managed by the federal and state governments.
There are also many private vocational colleges: the qualifications from these institutions are mostly certificates and diplomas, with a small number also offering bachelor-level courses.
What courses can you take through work-and-study?
Work-and-study is known for its low cost, flexible courses and the right to work legally. Australia has many vocational colleges, and students can choose affordable, good-value institutions and courses with flexible timetables. There is a wide range of schools and courses to choose from.
The most common fields are English language, business, early childhood education, translation, management, automotive repair, Western cookery, massage and more. Students can choose a city, school and field of study that suits their interests. If you like the buzz of a big city, choose Sydney — a thoroughly modern metropolis with a thriving business scene, abundant parks and plenty of ocean views! It is deservedly Australia’s most developed city — an Americanised city, rather like New York. If you prefer a strong cultural atmosphere, choose Melbourne — more artistic and relaxed, comfortable and clean, rich in culture, with plenty of entertainment and sporting events. For anyone who loves watching the F1 and the Australian Open, Melbourne is a great choice. It is more of a Europeanised city, rather like London.
When is the right time to apply for work-and-study?
When should you apply for work-and-study? Since the pandemic began, work-and-study student visas have seen the biggest boom in their history — especially in the second half of 2020. We expect another large wave of offshore grants before Christmas 2020, so we encourage everyone to lodge in time.
What’s more, the Australian visa assessment level for Chinese passport holders has risen to the top tier, Level 1, which is the icing on the cake for work-and-study student visa approvals. Our company already has many success stories of offshore work-and-study grants, which I have shared many times before on our WeChat official account and Moments.
Although the travel ban has not yet lifted, now is a good time to secure an offshore work-and-study student visa while approvals are coming through easily — so that when the ban lifts you can be among the first students to enter the country.
Do you need an English test result for work-and-study?
The answer is: not necessarily. There are two ways.
First, Australian vocational colleges can offer a placement test — in simple terms, an English test. If you pass the school’s English test and reach the level required for diploma study, you can go straight into the main course of your major, without providing an additional IELTS or PTE result.
Second, if a student sits the vocational college’s English test but does not pass, they can be enrolled in the English language course the college specifies. The length of the language course is determined by the student’s English level.
Can you bring your spouse and children on work-and-study?
The answer is: yes. While an international student studies, the Australian government allows their spouse and minor children to obtain a dependent visa. This means your spouse and children can also come to live in Australia on a dependent visa, and your spouse can work here too — because the work-and-study dependent visa also carries work rights, allowing up to 20 hours of legal work per week. It truly means one person studies and the whole family moves to Australia!
After You’ve Applied
What insurance cover is there for work-and-study?
International students in Australia must take out OSHC — Overseas Student Health Cover (OSHC) — an insurance policy established specifically for international students studying in Australia. It covers the following categories of medical costs: hospital cover, medical services cover, pharmaceutical cover and ambulance cover. After a consultation or hospital stay, the insurer pays all or part of your medical costs according to the reimbursement rate set out in your policy.
The Department of Home Affairs requires that you maintain Overseas Student Health Cover continuously for the entire duration of your studies in Australia. If your student visa is extended, you must extend your cover accordingly. If your spouse or children under 18 accompany you in Australia, they must also take out health cover.
What work opportunities are there with work-and-study?
In Australia, international students have a great many work opportunities. Australia is nothing short of a paradise for blue-collar workers. More and more Australians are giving up office jobs to take up trade apprenticeships. Why are blue-collar and trade roles so popular again? It has a lot to do with the government’s forecast that demand for these roles will surge.
By 2023, the federal government forecasts a need for an additional 28,300 food trades workers (up 14.2%), 25,800 construction workers (up 6.5%), and 17,800 energy, ICT (information and communications technology) and science and technology workers (up 7.1%). According to PayScale data, the median hourly wage for a bricklayer is around 29.28 AUD, while Australia’s current statutory minimum wage is 19.84 AUD.
Common jobs among the Chinese community include bubble-tea shops, construction sites, factories, removals, food delivery, restaurants, cooking and so on.
There are also many ways to find work; below are a few of the more common job-search platforms.
Seek website: http://www.seek.com.au/
Seek is Australia’s largest recruitment website and its most trusted online job-search platform, with thousands of job options to choose from. Through this site you can find work in all of Australia’s major cities, including Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Canberra.
Gumtree website: http://www.gumtree.com.au/
Gumtree is like a large local classifieds site, covering everything from selling second-hand goods, shopping and rentals to recruitment and job-hunting. Because users can post their own listings, most of the job ads on Gumtree are placed by individual employers — typically small and medium-sized businesses — with part-time and casual roles being the most common.
There are also many popular local Chinese-community websites in Australia, where the job listings are mainly for Chinese-owned companies or shops run by Chinese owners. The variety is enormous — common roles include delivery driver, food delivery, bubble-tea shops, hair salons, cafés, factories, fruit picking and more. Students who have just arrived in Australia tend to find work more easily on these platforms, and compared with sites dominated by Western-owned companies, the success rate of finding a job here is somewhat higher.
How long can a work-and-study visa be granted for?
How long a work-and-study visa can be applied for depends on the student’s age, academic background and past work history — only after weighing all of these can we decide whether to apply for 1 year, 2 years, 3 years or longer. Based on our past application experience, we usually apply for a 2-year student visa the first time. The student enters Australia and begins studying and living here; after 2 years the course ends, and if they wish to study further in Australia they can apply for a new student visa onshore.
Can work-and-study lead to migration?
The answer is: yes. But it is not especially easy. In today’s Australian migration climate, migrating through work-and-study requires the right timing, place and circumstances all coming together. Put simply, after graduating you need to have an assessing authority carry out a skills assessment; once the skills assessment is passed, you need to gain relevant work experience before you have a chance to migrate. For example, if you study early childhood education, you need to find related early-childhood work; if you study Western cookery, you need to do kitchen-related work.
Finally, a Real Success Story
Student LI, from Chongqing, China, aged 35, recently lodged a work-and-study student visa in China and was granted at lightning speed after completing the medical.
This once again confirms that, during the pandemic, lodging a student visa from overseas is currently a golden opportunity — especially for students who have previously held an Australian visa, whether a visitor visa, a student visa or a working holiday visa, who tend to be approved more easily. What’s more, with the Chinese passport now at Level 1, even offshore students need not provide an IELTS result or proof of funds. After lodging the visa, you print the medical letter, complete your health check at a designated hospital in China, and the visa is generally granted within about 3 weeks.
