By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, July 19 (IANS): Australia sure is going all out to win back the confidence of Indians, specially students, after the spate of attacks on members of the community in the past few months. Immigration Minister Chris Evans is the latest to head to New Delhi to promote his country as a "safe destination".

Evans, arriving in the Indian capital Sunday night, aims to reinforce that Australia is a "welcoming and safe destination for Indian students and migrants". At the same time, he concedes there are problems, especially in the Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector that need to be jointly tackled by both countries.

Over 50 Indian students were injured in attacks in Australian cities, most of them being in and around Melbourne, in the last few months, threatening the country's second largest education market.

In 2008, there were 435,263 international students from 200 countries enrolled in Australian educational institutes led by China and India.

The minister acknowledged that the VET sector has problems and it hasn't kept pace with the needs of students. Since 2005, the number of overseas students in vocational training has leapt from 65,000 to almost 174,000.

"It is fair to say that the growth in the VET sector has seen some of the problems develop because some providers have not provided as good a quality education as we were hopeful. Secondly, we have had more Indian students with less financial resources, who have been forced to work more hours than they should be and perhaps live in inappropriate suburbs," Evans told IANS in an interview.

Asked about international students being duped by immigration agents making false promises, Evans said: "We are going to tackle that and the prime minister's task force has been in part focusing on it."

He added: "We have registration of migration agents in Australia and that is regulated. There is an onus upon education institutions to use only agents with integrity, but there is also a responsibility upon governments to provide better protection."

In recent years, there has been an increase in people doing short courses on skills like hairdressing and cooking.

"We need to make some policy adjustments in this country to make sure we are not providing perverse incentives. We want the best Indian students coming for top quality educational outcomes in both higher education and the VET sectors," emphasised Evans.

"We have heard stories of students borrowing being in debt and that put a whole lot of other pressures on them and that doesn't allow them to focus on their studies. On July 1, I increased the English language threshold levels for students applying onshore as we have found that those with relevant skills and good English make successful migrants," Evans told IANS.

While some students want the number of hours increased, Australia is not likely to review the 20 hours work per week regulation on the student visa.

"Increasing working hours would undermine the core reason for which the visa was granted and that is to study. We don't want to have a situation where the primary purpose is work ...," he explained.

Australia has seen a spiralling growth in the number of Indians coming to settle, study and do business. India is the largest source of general skilled migrants to Australia, the second-largest source, after China, of overseas students and the second-largest source, after Britain, of temporary business visa grants.

Reiterating that "the overwhelming story of Indian migration is a success story", the minister said: "We see India as a long-term source of skilled labour and migrants to this country.

Evans is to meet a number of Indian officials, including Overseas Indian Affairs Minister Vayalar Ravi.