CRICOS Experts / Endings

Transfers between providers

A restricted process that is frequently misapplied.

Frameworks in this area commonly restrict a student's ability to transfer to another provider within an early period, and require the releasing provider to assess requests against stated grounds. The restriction exists to prevent poaching and to give a course a chance to work.

It is misapplied when it is treated as a commercial protection. Refusing a release to retain a fee, or refusing without assessing the stated grounds, is both a compliance failure and a serious matter for a student whose enrolment underpins their visa.

The grounds usually include circumstances where the transfer is in the student's interest, and a student who is failing, unhappy or in a course that is not suitable frequently falls squarely within them. Assessing genuinely and documenting the reasoning is the requirement.

Refusals must be accompanied by the appeals route and by the practical information the student needs. A refusal delivered without explanation, to somebody whose status depends on the outcome, is the kind of act that produces complaints to a regulator rather than to the provider.

There is a further point about transfers that providers overlook, which is the receiving side. A provider accepting a student from another institution has its own obligations around suitability, credit and honest information, and enrolling a transferring student who cannot succeed simply moves the eventual failure rather than resolving it.