On 1 June 2011, the Minister of Immigration announced a package of policy changes for international students.

Following that announcement, sector feedback was received regarding the new requirement for students to study a two-year course before they can qualify for Study to Work visas (the Graduate Job Search and Graduate Work Experience visas).

In order to ensure that this requirement is well targeted, a further round of targeted sector consultation was undertaken. The submissions received have now been considered and final decisions made. These decisions are to:

• delay the implementation of this requirement until 2 April 2012 (students who commence their course before this date will not be affected)
• enable qualifying one academic year courses to include:
  • all postgraduate qualifications, or
  • credit-transferred bachelors’ degrees, or
  • all one year level 7 courses.
• and also enable ‘one year + one year’ course combinations to meet the two-year study requirement, so long as:
  • both courses qualify for Skilled Migrant Category points, and
  • the second course is at a higher level than the first course (for example, a level 5 diploma followed by a level 6 diploma), and
  • both courses are of at least one academic year’s duration (eight months full time study).

The updated Student changes fact sheet PDF [437KB] contains the detail of these changes and also provides more detail on the overall policy package.

See also the frequently asked questions on changes to Skilled Migrant Category and Study to Work instructions.

(Source INZ)