2016-Aug 15: Course Start Dates on Offers of Place

Visa Pak 272: Advice for staff about course start dates on offers of place provided with student visa applications.

Visa Paks

15 August 2016 

At recent peak body meetings, members of the private training establishment (PTE) sector have raised the question of whether Immigration New Zealand (INZ) would accept a flexible course start date on an offer of place (OOP).

This has been in response to a number of cases where students had submitted a student visa application but their course start date had passed while the application was still under processing. In these cases the students were told by INZ to submit a new OOP with a new start date, resulting in additional work for the education providers as well as further delays for the students.

U3.5 Offer of a place

Immigration instructions at U3.5 do not specify the need for an OOP to have a start date. This means that where a student’s course start date has passed, immigration officers should not be requiring a new OOP on the basis that the OOP submitted at lodgement no longer meets instructions, as technically it can be considered acceptable.

It is still important for INZ to be aware of a student’s course start date, and particularly where a student has missed their course start date, know that the student has been accepted for the next available intake.  For many PTEs this is not a problem as they have regular intakes (depending on the programme of study being offered). Rather than requiring a new OOP be submitted, immigration officers can instead accept confirmation of the new start date from the education provider. This could be by way of, for example:

  • an email or letter from the education provider
  • for offshore applications, with the fee receipt at Approval in Principle stage.

Flexible and approximate course start dates

Immigration officers can also accept OOPs with flexible or approximate course dates, provided the course does in fact have regular as opposed to fixed intakes (this should be specified on the OOP). As above, the final start date can be confirmed with the education provider directly.