If the school or academic year in your country also coincide with the calendar year, it’s easy to synch the timing of your transition from studying in your country to Australia. But what about those who are coming from countries whose school year encompasses or overlaps within two calendar years and doesn’t synch with Australia’s school calendar? Read on.
Australian academic year coincides with or is contained within the calendar year. Australian schools (meaning primary and secondary schools) start at around last week of January (or very early February) and ends early December in the same year, while universities start at around March and end around late November, with summer sessions beginning in December to February. Vocational education and training (VET) providers, including English language schools, although they commence their short courses all-year round, also follow the university school calendar.
Many countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, Brazil, etc. also have their academic year coinciding with the calendar year. A senior high school student from Singapore, for example, wanting to study university in Australia can start planning and applying to Australian institutions around middle of the year, enrol around the same time they’re finishing high school in their home country (assuming all is well), and start preparing for their transition to Australia during the holidays. They can be in Australia in February ready for the start of 1st semester of university in March. Synched.
If you’re from a place wherein the academic year encompasses or overlaps two years, your entry may not be as seamless but there are a number of situations wherein it’s actually a good thing. For example, if you’re a student from the Philippines or Nepal or India and you need to sit ELICOS as a condition of your main university study course. Finishing your senior high around March and starting your ELICOS in Australia as soon as possible may allow you to finish ELICOS in time for the start of 2nd semester (most Australian universities and courses allow mid-year entry). If you’re a student from Vietnam or China, you practically don’t lose that much time because by the time you finished your senior high it’s almost the middle of the year. You can use the extra bit of time before you start your mid-year entry in an Australian university to have a bit of well-deserve break or use the time to acclimatise yourself in Australia.
If you’re after an engineering or science degree course but you lack a prerequisite Math or Science subject to be admitted, most universities have bridging programs or courses that allow you to take and complete the prerequisite subject/s you need in order to be admitted. For example, for those wishing to study engineering in the University of Adelaide but lack the prerequisite Math Methods (or its equivalent), the University is offering a bridging program called MathTrackX which upon successful completion will satisfy the Faculty of Engineering’s Math requirement for admission. The program runs for 4 weeks. As in our scenario above, finishing senior high school in your home country a few months before the second semester gives you enough time to complete the bridging program. Also, due to the current pandemic, most universities now allow students to do bridging course or program online. A lot of flexibility in terms of whether you prefer to do it in your home country or here in Australia.
If your country’s school year doesn’t synch with Australia’s and you’re planning to send your child to attend school (primary or secondary) in Australia, it’s not necessary that you wait for your child to finish the school year in your home country before they can come here and continue their study. For example, you don’t need to have your child finish Year 8 first in your home country before you can enrol him or her to study Year 9 here in Australia. As long as they can show they have the general English, numerical and literacy skills appropriate for the year level they are enrolling in, and satisfy other requirements on their age and welfare, they can enrol. On the other hand, if you wish for your child to finish the current school year in your home country first before they transfer and continue their schooling here in Australia, that’s fine too. It’s not uncommon to see international students joining schools in Australia in 2nd or 3rd term (mid-year). For example, if your child finishes Year 7 around March in your home country, he or she can join Year 8 class in Australia in May during term 2. Also, government-run primary schools don’t have English language proficiency requirement for admission.
Regardless of whether the school or academic year in your home country synch with Australia or not, one of the most important things you can do is to initiate and work out your application as early as possible. How early? Consider:
– the processing time for your education provider application/s
– the processing time for your visa application
Most Australian education providers (from schools, to VET providers and universities) can give you the result of your application in as little as 2 to 4 weeks. Meanwhile, the processing times for a student visa application vary depending on the applicant’s study course. Before the onset of the pandemic, student visa application processing time for university students was between 24 to 45 days, for VET applicants it was 56 to 87 days, and for school applicants it was 41 to 59 days. Because of the ongoing pandemic the processing times have become uncharacteristically longer, but we expect the processing times to go back to the pre-Covid levels once things start to ease. Suffice to say that student visa processing time for VET students are longer than the processing time for school students, and the processing time for university students has always been the fastest. According to the Australian Dept of Home Affairs, visa processing time for student visa for university students is now a whopping 72 days to 5 months. If you are contemplating on studying in Australia this coming second semester of 2021 you need to act very soon, if not now. Yes, international students are still being allowed to come to Australia in spite of the general travel restrictions, and hopefully by spring this year things will be more relaxed (subject to the student’s vaccination status, we’re assuming).
