For students planning to study in Australia, it is essential to understand the visa assessment level; the Australian student visa program has three different assessment levels.

These levels indicate the risk associated with applicants from specific countries applying for specific areas of education. 

Level 3 represents the highest immigration risk, level 2 a medium risk and level 1 represents the lowest immigration risk in the assessment level hierarchy. 

Simplified student visa framework(SSVF)

The Australian government introduced a simplified student visa framework (SSVF) in July 2016. The purpose was to make the visa application process more straightforward for genuine students and maintain the fairness of Australia’s immigration programs. 

According to this framework, Australia's countries and all education providers are divided into 3 categories or assessment levels. These levels align student visa requirements to the immigration risk posed by applicants from a particular country studying in a particular education sector.

The higher the assessment level, the more the applicant is required to show evidence to support their claims for the grant of a student visa. 

Suppose you’re curious about how this works. In that case, it is a simple process of matching the level of country you’re applying from to the level of education provider you’re applying to study. It provides information on the document checklist and determines how your visa will be assessed. 

They call it the combined country and education provider evidence level model, which tells whether the student needs to provide evidence of financial or GTE documents and English language proficiency with their student visa application.

Nepal has gone down to assessment level 3 since September 2019, with countries like India and Pakistan. At regular intervals, Australian immigration checks the profiles of countries and education providers and changes in levels are assessed according to the guidelines. 

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What does going down on the Australian Student Visa Assessment Level means? 

Going down a level could be due to increasing onshore or offshore applicants' rejection rate, non-compliance with visa guidelines, etc. International students applying for a visa from a level 3 country must provide English language proficiency test results and proof of funds or GTE documents mandatorily to support their student visa application. 

Additionally, the Immigration authorities might also assess academic background or qualification criteria. However, for Level 1 country applicants, the GTE and financial evidence are not mandatory.
 

The evidentiary requirements under this program are shown below:

It would be best to find out your education provider’s assessment level from authentic sources, so visit the Immigration website with a tool to check education providers’ levels. For your convenience, document requirements will be listed based on your home country and education provider’s assessment level.