GROUPS of education providers who have a history of their international students not complying with immigration rules could find that their future students face higher hurdles in qualifying for a visa, according to a government discussion paper.

The paper also suggests that providers, rather than the immigration department, certify student English language proficiency.

Both suggestions amount to putting more responsibility on providers for ensuring they enrol only legitimate students.

The Department of Immigration and Citizenship is reviewing its student risk assessment levels. It released a discussion paper last week.

The paper has floated the possibility of using the performance of providers in assessing the risk of student applications.

While it notes that individually assessing providers may be too complex and costly, it has asked whether criteria could be agreed that would allow providers to be sorted into different groups with different risk assessment levels.

Currently the risk assessment framework only takes account of broad provider type, such as university, vocational education and training, and schools.

“If providers are assigned a risk level based on the immigration compliance outcomes of their international students for example, then they are likely to review their recruitment practices to focus on identifying genuine students,” the discussion paper said.

The Knight review last year had noted that introducing a risk assessment based on the individual performance of providers would be challenging and therefore wasn’t sensible. There are over 1200 providers registered to take international students. But the paper asked whether it is possible to more narrowly define groups of providers based on their performance.

“These same limitations may not necessarily apply to a provider-based risk approach that considered the immigration compliance outcomes of groups of providers that share common characteristics,” it said. The paper asks for feedback on what factors should be considered in determining how providers could be grouped.

The paper also asked whether providers be made responsible for certifying the English language proficiency of visa applicants rather than the department.

“If education providers only enrolled students with appropriately robust levels of English language, and provided evidence of this on the Confirmation of Enrolment document they issue to students that is then submitted to DIAC as part of the student’s visa application, then DIAC should not need to separately assess this requirement,” the paper suggests.

The department has asked for submissions in response to the paper by March 16. The review aims to report to government by mid-2012.