A flaw in Australia’s refugee laws means asylum seekers in the country on so-called fast-track visas are barred from universities or charged the same fees as international students.
It was not until he started Year 12 that Abishek Selvakumar discovered he would not be able to go to university.
With his friends beginning to discuss potential uni offers, Selvakumar researched the temporary visa he and his mother had been on for more than a decade and found it barred him from higher education.
Selvakumar arrived in Australia with his mother in 2013 after fleeing Sri Lanka when he was seven years old. They were subject to the then Coalition government’s so-called fast-track process and have been on temporary bridging visas ever since.
Though he wants to study construction management at university and has been in Australia for more than a decade, the visa conditions prevent Selvakumar from attending tertiary education.
“I feel excluded from all my other peers,” Selvakumar tells The Saturday Paper.
“I honestly gave up on my exams because I didn’t see the point. I was really looking forward to it. I was excited about that and getting to learn the subject I was passionate about, but I couldn’t do it.”
With Year 12 exams and university offerings fast approaching for 2024, there are many young people in similar positions who cannot pursue higher education because their parents are refugees and are on bridging visas.
Under these visas, they are either counted as international students and must pay extremely high fees or they are not allowed to study at all.
Harini Rathnakumar also did not realise her visa status made her different to her classmates until she received a university offer for a biomedical science degree that required her to pay international student fees of nearly $100,000.
Rathnakumar arrived in Australia in 2013 when she was 10 years old, leaving behind her two siblings and mother in a refugee camp in India after they had fled Sri Lanka in 2006.
“Ever since we came here, we’ve been on a bridging visa, but I didn’t know the full extent of what that meant until Year 12,” she tells The Saturday Paper. “I thought I was going to school like any other kid.”
She started the degree in 2020, self-funding her studies with help from her father and partner. After two-and-a-half years, with Rathnakumar a year behind in payments, the university disenrolled her in 2023, four months before she was set to complete her studies.
“All my dreams shattered,” Rathnakumar says. “I didn’t know what to do with my life. It’s a very hard situation watching my friends I studied with go on to finish their degrees, get better jobs and chase their dreams, while I’m stuck in this state of limbo.
“Every single day that goes by, all I think about is how different my life could be if I had a permanent visa.”
According to the latest figures from the Department of Home Affairs, there are a little more than 10,000 people in Australia on bridging visas who arrived in the country by boat. This includes just under 3000 applications in process; a little more than 7000 applications have been refused, cancelled or expired.
The fast-track program, which saw about 32,000 people processed, stripped asylum seekers of rights to appear at the application hearing and to appeal against the decision on their visas. The Albanese government abolished the fast-track system with effect from July 1 this year, having stated in its national platform that the scheme did “not provide a fair, thorough and robust assessment process”.
For those still on temporary visas in Australia, it means they are living in limbo, with few rights in terms of education, healthcare and work, and no certainty on whether they will be able to remain in Australia.
“They’ve been waiting in this limbo for a decade, and at any time you could be sent back to a country where you feel like you’ll be in harm’s way,” says Adama Kamara, the deputy chief executive of the Refugee Council of Australia.
“Ever since we came here, we’ve been on a bridging visa, but I didn’t know the full extent of what that meant until Year 12. I thought I was going to school like any other kid.”
“It’s really about wasted opportunities and talent. You’ve got people who have been in the country for a decade and they have roots here. They’ve gone through the schooling system and have created friendships. They could be contributing to society.”
Last year, the federal government announced those caught up in the fast-track process and on temporary visas would be able to apply for permanent residency. However, it will be upholding the rejections made under the fast-track process, despite acknowledging its flaws.
“The government is focused on providing those who engage Australia’s protection obligations and who have been residing in Australia for long periods of time a chance to continue their lives in Australia with certainty and security,” a Home Affairs spokesperson said.
“People who do not engage protection obligations, who are not awaiting a merits or judicial review outcome, and who have exhausted all avenues to remain in Australia, are expected to depart Australia voluntarily and may be provided assistance to depart.”
That means no pathway to permanent residency or reviews have been offered to those impacted by the failed fast-track scheme. These are the individuals now living in limbo on restrictive visas and effectively barred from going to university.
According to Home Affairs, nearly a third of all the people in Australia on bridging visa E are from Sri Lanka, equating to 3000 people as of the end of June.
“Before the fast-track, the majority of people from those countries were accepted, but with this unfair system they were rejected,” says Kalyani Inpakumar, the New South Wales coordinator at the Tamil Refugee Council. “It has impacted them very badly.
“There were no interviews. Sometimes only certain documents could be submitted and there was no appeals process.”
Due to this system, many children who arrived in Australia a decade ago are not able to pursue higher education studies.
“You’d think a country like Australia would encourage children to go ahead and study if that’s what they want to do, but they’re not allowed,” Inpakumar says.
“In Year 12 they have a cohort of classmates going on to study and to work and follow their aspirations. These children are not allowed to do that. They consider themselves to be Australians, they’ve been here since they were 10 or younger and they’ve gone through the school system, but they’re not allowed to go to university.”
Advocates also argue that the situation in Sri Lanka for Tamils has deteriorated further over the past decade, and many decisions under the fast-track process should be reconsidered. A government spokesperson said final determinations made through this process would remain, and those with new protection claims had to apply for ministerial intervention.
Sowriya Vishmuvarman arrived in Australia with her mother and brother after fleeing Sri Lanka in 2012. They have also been on temporary bridging visas ever since.
Vishmuvarman completed her HSC last year and received an offer to study nursing at Western Sydney University. She was also accepted into a three-month intensive course leading into a bachelor of psychology at Macquarie University. She opted for the psychology course and began studying as an international student paying full fees.
Three weeks into the course, Vishmuvarman received a call from a Department of Home Affairs official who said her visa conditions did not allow her to study at all.
“I felt happy in those three weeks I was going to university,” Vishmuvarman tells The Saturday Paper. “I felt safe and it was comfortable for me to go there every day.
“After immigration called me, I didn’t know what to do. It felt like my whole world had shattered. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, I didn’t want to go outside.”
For more than a month, Vishmuvarman and her mother have attended a 24/7 protest outside the Sydney office of Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke, calling for better support and a pathway to residency for those affected by the fast-track process.
“We go to the protests every day – we’re sitting there from morning to evening hoping there’s some sort of light at the end,” she says.
For many of the children of refugees, the prospect of university and finding a job also provided the opportunity to give back to their parents, who risked everything to find them safety in Australia.
Abishek Selvakumar says his mother brought him up and this was meant to be an opportunity to thank her. “I finally thought it was my time to do something for her and for myself, but I couldn’t,” he says. “She struggled so much trying to raise me and I finally thought I would have a better life for her and continue studying to build a better life.”
The 24/7 protest has been going for more than 40 days and has spread beyond Melbourne and Sydney to other locations including Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane.
“They’ve waited for 14 years already, we can’t waste another year,” Inpakumar says. “They should be able to go to university while the government processes their permanent pathway. For young children, wasting one year is a long time.”
For Vishmuvarman and other children of asylum seekers on temporary visas, the limbo continues.
“Education is really important, especially in Australia and especially without permanent residency,” she says. “If we have a degree or certificate in hand, we can look forward to something in the future. That’s been taken away.”
This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on September 14, 2024 as "‘All my dreams shattered’".