the once-booming vocational education sector is heading for a big bust.

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THE once-booming vocational education sector, which made a lucrative business of selling residency-linked courses such as cookery and hairdressing, is heading for a big bust.

The Rudd government's move to refocus migration on higher skills and dump a long list of lower-skilled eligible occupations is likely to send some colleges out of business.



University of Melbourne immigration expert Lesleyanne Hawthorne said: "When people realise there's been a decoupling of trades from migration, many of those colleges will go under."



The private vocational sector is already under pressure from a crackdown on visa applications, bad publicity over dodgy colleges and attacks on Indian students.



Universities are set to be the long-term winners from the change, as international students seek higher qualifications, which may drive a new boom in masters degree courses.



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Canny vocational colleges are already planning to switch into providing higher education courses such as in business.



Student Gurpreet Singh, 22, is "very worried" by the government's migration reforms and fears his dream of working as a chef in an Australian five-star hotel will not be realised.



Mr Singh left his home state of Punjab, in India's north, three years ago to study commercial cookery in Sydney's west. He is now in his final year of study at the Australian Academy of Management & Science at Quakers Hill.



He believes the reforms to be unfair. "I like the standard of living here and want to be a part of that," Mr Singh said.



"I've been spending all this time getting better at cooking and learning the hospitality customs here, so I should be able to get a fair chance at staying."



Mr Singh urged the government to stagger the implementation of the reforms. "If they want to change things, they should only apply the new rules to people who are not already here . . . not to those who have already got their hopes up," he said.



Vocational providers are angry the government has scrapped the old Migration Occupations on Demand List but will not give details of the new Skilled Occupations List until April.



Australian Council for Private Education and Training chief executive Andrew Smith said the government had left the industry in a "planning vacuum".



The public TAFE sector backed his comments. "We now face a period of uncertainty for potential international students who may well choose other options for their overseas studies," said TAFE Directors Australia acting chief executive Pam Caven.



Catherine Carrick, founder of vocational college network Carrick Institute of Education, said the changes would hit quality education providers rather than targeting the dodgy colleges running visa factories.



The unscrupulous colleges "shouldn't have been allowed to grow as they have done, and I believe this is an over-reaction to that", Ms Carrick said.



Additional reporting: Lanai Vasek

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