International Students

‍The Registration Requirement

📌 Important Note for Applicants: Important Note for Applicants: This standard only applies if your proposed school intends to register with CRICOS to advertise, recruit, and provide educational services to full fee paying international student visa holders (Subclass 500). If you are establishing a school strictly for local domestic students, you can mark this section as "Not Applicable" on your initial application form and skip it entirely.

Under Chapter 5: Overseas Students of the Guide to the registration standards and other requirements for non-government schools effective 1 January 2024, any school enrolling international visa holding students must ensure that its localised operational procedures are fully aligned with the Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000 (Cth) (ESOS Act) and the National Code 2018. Your school’s governing body and executive leadership team hold joint state and federal legal accountability for monitoring visa compliance, ensuring student welfare tracking, and maintaining an active, error free Commonwealth Register of Institutions and Courses for Overseas Students (CRICOS) profile.

To satisfy these intersecting national standards, your school must demonstrate an uncompromised administrative workflow. This framework must specify rigorous welfare monitoring systems for unaccompanied minors, mandate strict attendance and course progression tracking, and outline clear protocols for managing critical incidents that uniquely threaten an international student's ability to retain their student visa status.

💡 Expert Compliance Note: The Department of Education and federal regulators use an automated, data driven approach when auditing international student programmes. Case managers will critically cross examine your live student information system entries against the federal Provider Registration and International Student Management System (PRISMS). Gaps in your welfare confirmation records for under 18 students, failing to issue formal notices for course breaches, or treating international student critical incidents without specialised PRISMS reporting lines will trigger an immediate compliance failure, putting your entire CRICOS registration at risk. Directing your clients to a robust, compliant primary framework is the most efficient way to de-risk this section.

‍Official References

The application form and guide are available for download via the links below.

‍ 👉 Application for registration document.

‍ 👉 Guide to the registration standards and other requirements for non-government schools effective 1 January 2024‍ ‍

Your Downloadable Master Document

Access your master international compliance and admissions framework below. This comprehensive file contains the core policy structures, legislative disclosures, and written agreement baselines required to clear a registration audit.

👉Download International Student Enrolment Policy

📌 Please Note: This master policy serves as your foundational compliance text for international enrolees. You will need to ensure your live office practices and software settings mirror the exact rules established inside this document.

Internal Proposed Evidence

Recommended Checklist for Part B Submission: To help build out your submission folder for Part B of the Application for initial registration, we recommend gathering these key internal files from your school records. Please note that while these specific documents are recommended to help evidence your compliance, this is a practical guide rather than an exhaustive checklist.

  • Proposed CRICOS Course Registration Schedule: Your completed CRICOS Course Registration and Variation Schedule form detailing your intended international student capacity and year levels.

  • Blank International Student Written Agreement Draft: Your pro-forma contract and letter of offer layout, constructed in strict accordance with National Code requirements to detail overseas tuition fees, refund conditions, and educational expectations.

  • Proposed International Student Fee Refund Policy: Your finalised governing body text outlining how overseas student unspent tuition fees are managed, protected, and refunded in the event of provider or student default.

  • Blank Localised International Enrolment Register Template: A blank copy or software blueprint of your proposed student administration system, proving it features separate metadata fields to track visa categories, entry dates, and passport lines.

  • Proposed English Language Intake Vetting Framework: Your internal office guidelines mapping out the precise accredited language test thresholds (such as AEAS or IELTS scores) required before processing formal student offers.

  • Blank Course Progress and Attendance Intervention Templates: Pro-forma academic and tracking sheets built to trigger structured internal learning support the moment an overseas student flags an educational deficit.

  • Blank International Appeals Track Layouts: Pro-forma internal grievance forms and administrative review templates designed to guarantee full procedural fairness during enrolment disputes.

  • Proposed Under 18 Overseas Minor Welfare Guidelines: Your administrative manual detailing accommodation screening rules, guardian vetting, and emergency protocols, used if the school intends to assume institutional welfare responsibility.

Compliance Tips & Hidden Requirements

School registration reviews in WA have a few unique, specific traps that catch boards out. Make sure your team knows these hidden rules:

  • The Absolute Core Framework Requirement (Page 18): When deploying your International Student Enrolment Policy, case managers will evaluate how tightly it binds the school to the National Code 2018. The policy text must clearly account for international fee refund structures, specific grounds for suspension of study, and individual student transfer boundaries. If these statutory disclosures are left generic, the file will be flagged for immediate remediation during your desktop review.

  • The Mandatory 20 Day PRISMS Appeals Hold (Page 18): A major regulatory pitfall is attempting to immediately notify the Commonwealth via PRISMS the moment an international student breaches attendance or academic progress thresholds. Under the Chapter 5 framework, state registration rules enforce an explicit administrative hold. Before executing a visa threatening notification, your administration must issue a formal "Intent to Report" notice and allow the student exactly 20 working days to access your internal appeals track. The student's enrolment must remain completely active throughout the duration of this internal evaluation loop.

  • The Non-Standard Attendance Trigger Boundary (Standard 6 / Page 18 Intersect): Your prospective daily attendance tracking configurations under Standard 6 must feature a specialised automation threshold for international cohorts. While local domestic students trigger standard pastoral care interventions for unexcused absences, tracking on Page 18 dictates that international visa holders must maintain a minimum attendance rate of 80% across their scheduled course hours. Your planned database parameters must prove that the moment an overseas student's attendance drops toward this threshold, a formal warning sequence is instantly triggered.

  • The Critical Incident Notification Line (Standard 7 / Page 18 Intersect): Managing an emergency involving an overseas student requires a dual crisis tracking process. While Standard 7 requires a school to log any event causing severe physical or psychological trauma as a critical incident within 48 hours, your crisis management procedure must feature an immediate Page 18 trigger. If the incident affects an international student's capacity to complete their studies, federal regulators must be notified alongside local departments via PRISMS, ensuring that care lines and visa tracking are synchronised seamlessly during a crisis.

House Operational Risk Tips (Not Explicitly in the Guide)

  • Mask Technical Database Fields and Keys: When saving your proposed software blueprints, database configuration maps, or sample registration spreadsheets to your Part B evidence folder, maintain a strict privacy boundary. All system keys, database rows, or mock student data indicators must be completely blocked out or replaced with standard placeholders like [ID Number Redacted] to satisfy strict administrative data protection expectations.

  • Enforce Separate Roll Segregation for Attendance Tracking: Propose in your administrative manual that your central student management system (such as Synergetic, SEQTA, or TASS) be programmatically configured to compile independent, standalone attendance reports for overseas visa holders. Bounding international attendance logs away from local cohorts allows your future registrar to continuously verify the strict 80% visa safety floor without manual human sorting.

  • Isolate and Index Welfare Confirmation Letters (CAAW): If your proposed school plans to accept unaccompanied overseas minors and take on institutional responsibility for their accommodation under a Confirmation of Appropriate Accommodation and Welfare (CAAW), ensure your file storage protocols securely index these draft frameworks alongside passport and visa data fields for immediate auditor review.

Compliance Quick Check

Before you finish, double check that your school leadership has completed and marked off these specific items required on the official initial application form:

  • Does your school possess formal, signed written agreements on file for 100% of current international visa holding enrolees that match your International Student Enrolment Policy mandates?

    Can you prove through data logs that your student administration system tracks overseas student attendance metrics as an independent, standalone data stream?

    Is your internal student management database configured to enforce a mandatory 20 day holding delay whenever an intentional academic progress breach warning is issued?

📌 Now don’t forget to save your evidence in your created folder in your school's shared drive (Google Drive or OneDrive).

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