No Evidence of Australian Government’s Ban on Students from Specific North Indian States
A post (here & here) is being widely shared on social media claiming that the Australian government has banned Indian students from Gujarat, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar from enrolling in Australian universities due to concerns over visa fraud and document forgery. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Australian government has banned Indian students from Gujarat, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar from enrolling in Australian universities due to concerns over visa fraud and document forgery.
Fact: The Australian government has not imposed any such ban. Some universities temporarily paused admissions from certain Indian states in 2023 due to high visa rejection and dropout rates, but these were independent decisions and were later lifted. However, recent data shows Indian students face higher visa rejection rates, with approval rates dropping from nearly 90% to around 65%. Hence the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
An internet search using relevant keywords did not yield any official statement from the Australian Government or credible media reports confirming a ban on Indian students from specific states.
However, further search revealed that, according to media reports (here, here, and here), some Australian universities in 2023 temporarily paused or restricted the recruitment of students from certain Indian states, such as Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, and others. This decision was due to a sharp rise in visa rejections linked to concerns over fraudulent and non-genuine applications. The Department of Home Affairs reported that around one in four applications from India were considered “fraudulent” or “non-genuine.” Universities like Federation University and Western Sydney University also pointed to high dropout rates and an increase in visa refusals from specific regions in India.
In response, the Australian High Commission clarified in April 2023 that the Australian Government does not ban applicants from any specific region from applying to study in Australia. It also stated that the government does not have the authority to instruct universities to restrict admissions based on region and that each university makes its own decisions regarding recruitment and admissions.
When the issue was raised in the Rajya Sabha in August 2023, the Ministry of External Affairs informed that they had contacted the concerned universities, and the universities clarified that they had only reviewed their Genuine Temporary Entrant (GTE) assessment processes to address high dropout rates and non-genuine applications. Furthermore, according to media reports from September 2023, these universities later lifted the temporary restrictions on recruiting students from the affected Indian states.
However, recent data indicate that Indian students face higher visa rejection rates compared to others. This comes after the Australian Parliament rejected a bill that would have allowed the Education Minister to cap international student numbers at 270,000 by 2025. Visa grant rates for Indian students have dropped from nearly 90% to around 65% in recent years. According to the Australian Government data, a total of 853,045 international students studied in Australia between January and December 2024, out of which 139,038 were Indian students.
To sum up, there is no evidence that the Australian government has banned students from specific North Indian states. The decision was made independently by individual universities in 2023 and was later revised.