I'd like to welcome you to the NextEd's results presentation for the financial year ending 30th of June, 2024. I'm Kylie Ramsden, Managing Partner at GRACosway, and I will be hosting the call today. I have with me today our Chief Executive Officer, Glenn Elith, and Chief Financial Officer, Michael Fahey. I'd now like to hand over to Glenn to make some opening remarks.
Thank you, Kylie, and thanks to everybody who's joined us on the call today. We've split our results presentation into sections, and I'd like to kick off proceedings by handing over to our CFO, Michael Fahey, who's going to take us through FY 2024 financial highlights.
Okay. Thank you, Glenn, and let me add my welcome to today's call. Turning to slide four. In difficult market conditions, particularly in the second half of the year, NextEd has been able to deliver a solid set of results. Revenue for the year was AUD 111 million, up AUD 9.1 million, or 9% versus the prior corresponding period. Revenue growth was driven mainly by the international vocational segment, which grew 15%, and Go Study, which grew 14%. In the technology and design segment, revenues declined by 20% as some international students switched to cheaper vocational courses delivered by other colleges. The decline in technology and design revenues also impacted EBITDA, which at AUD 15 million, was AUD 1.7 million below last year. Operating cash flows for the period were AUD 1.7 million.
Although this is a decline from the prior year, it is AUD 5.5 million higher in the second half than in the first half, where we had a operating cash outflow of AUD 1.9 million. Cash at the end of the year was AUD 19.3 million, which is AUD 1.3 million higher than the cash balance at the end of April, as reported in our trading update on the 17th of May. Turning to slide five. International vocational student numbers, and that is those students not studying English language courses, grew 3% versus June 2023. However, that statistic doesn't tell the story of the successful second half year growth in vocational student numbers. Hospitality student numbers grew from 488 in December to 1,021 at the end of June 2024.
Healthcare courses were launched in March 2024 and have already grown to 168 students at the end of June. Management student numbers also grew by about 100 during the half year. NextEd has continued to invest in course development, in curriculum areas to address both current and emerging workforce needs. Courses developed include an Advanced Diploma of Marketing Automation, a Diploma of E-Commerce, and a Diploma of Web Development, which are due to launch in early FY 2025.
Healthcare courses developed and launched during the year include a Certificate III in Individual Support, a Certificate IV in Aging Support, and a Diploma in Community Services. Following the federal government's actions to reduce international student numbers, NextEd took proactive measures to reduce its fixed cost base, including exiting two leases and reducing overhead costs, predominantly in non-teaching labor. These actions have been targeted to deliver savings of AUD 5 million in FY 2025. I'll now hand back to Glenn for the operating highlights.
Thanks, Michael. The next section of the presentation is operating highlights for FY 2024. I'll ask people to turn to slide seven. NextEd has been executing on a focused strategy, leveraging its broad range of capabilities, and in FY 2024, I've categorized on this slide what we've done around new courses and some campus activities. Under the new course heading, we launched our international student hospitality courses in the large Melbourne and Sydney markets last September. And as Michael's already touched on, we've achieved some impressive growth in those student numbers, and as at the end of July, 1,158 hospitality students, which is higher than the June number that Michael's just referred to.
We launched three high-demand international student about healthcare courses, aged care, individual support, and community services, in March this year, and we're seeing encouraging growth, already up to 236 students, as at the end of July for those newly launched qualifications. We talked recently in a trading update that in May this year we received regulatory approval, exclusive regulatory approval for a period of five years for some internally developed courses that we've written in e-commerce and marketing automation. We are going to take our first intakes of students into those new courses in October this year. I think it's worth noting when you look at the course development activities that we've listed here, that there's no surprise that we've selected course curriculum areas which are seeing longer term workforce need growth and skilled learning growth.
So certainly in our thinking, choosing those courses is thinking about those longer term opportunities to support the workforce and economy. If I turn to the campus expansion activities, we in Melbourne we added extra 12 classrooms, but we also, more importantly, added a substantial commercial teaching kitchen. These are very large classrooms which have eight or nine gas cookers on them, and you could have a couple of students to each gas cooker. It's worth pointing out that each of our industrial teaching kitchens that we have in our campuses around the country, each of those individual kitchens can support around 600-700 students. That's because of the way we timetable on daytime, evening, and weekends.
We timetable that the students probably spend a day or so a week in the kitchen, and the rest of the time they're in a normal classroom. And the way that we also then flex up and flex down the classroom and practical components to those courses with all those different timetabling variations in mind. So the growth opportunity from those commercial kitchens is pretty high. In Brisbane, we added 13 extra classrooms, which at the time enabled us to exit some sublease premises, which were where we were paying higher leasing costs. In Adelaide, we relocated to a larger and much higher quality campus facility, yeah, late last calendar year.
But more importantly, in April this year, we were able to launch international student operations on that larger, more substantial campus. And I think importantly for future consideration of the Adelaide campus is not only its central location and its quality, but also that Adelaide is considered regional. And it's interesting when you read the press and you look at government commentary and regulatory commentary, that there the government does seem, in various instances, to support regional learning opportunities for both domestic and international students.
So just one to watch for future. Lastly, we relocated our Gold Coast campus in April this year, and that also included a substantial commercial teaching kitchen, which I've touched on before, as well as new aged care lab facilities to support the, Not only the existing domestic students that we deliver to in the Gold Coast market, but to the new international students, cohorts that we are delivering the aged care courses to.
Again, Gold Coast is also considered and classified as regional, when you're looking at government policies and support for domestic and international student learning moving forward. I'll now turn us to slide eight, where we're looking at the student nationality mix. So when I look at NextEd's international students who are doing English language or our range of vocational courses, so that's certificates and diplomas in management, hospitality, healthcare, and other courses we deliver to those students, is you'll see on the slides or the graphs on the left-hand side of the page, that we've seen a mixed shift.
We've seen growth in the higher margin vocational courses, especially in the newly launched hospitality and healthcare courses. You'll see in those graphs that that has largely offset the decline in English language student numbers since the end of the first half year, FY 2024. Our English language student numbers have been impacted by higher student visa rejection rates and government policy, which I will touch on in a few moments. The international student vocational mix grew to 46% of the mix of the international students, up from 33% at the previous half year.
Again, when you compare the numbers on this slide, which are at the half year period, so at the end of June, to my previous slide, where I talk about July numbers, again, I'll point out you'll see that those student numbers in vocational actually grew from June into July, which is a good sign of the impact coming into FY 2025. I'll now turn to slide nine. Look, most of NextEd's courses include practical components or tactile components, where a student engaging with a trainer, a teacher, or a student's engaging with each other is an important part of the learning experience, and we deliver those practical components in a classroom.
It's also important to point out that all international student visa holders in Australia are required to have a portion of their studies delivered in an accredited campus and in an accredited classroom. So with that in mind, managing NextEd's campus utilization is an important operational activity for the group. You'll see on the graphs and tables on this page that at the end of July, we had reduced our footprint to eight campuses and 239 classrooms, and that for the second half of the financial year, our average daytime classroom utilization was 71%. Our campuses are all located in prime VET locations in Australia's largest addressable markets, and we have reported in previous trading updates, can support significant future revenue growth without any further investment required.
Investments we've made include those in specialist facilities, particularly to support our high-demand hospitality, aged care, and IT programs, where we are seeing student number growth. We exited a campus in Sydney, a couple of months ago here, freeing up 18 classrooms that were no longer required and delivering annual rental savings around AUD 1.3 million. And I'll come to in a few moments that our campus utilization is being negatively impacted at the moment by increased visa rejection rates from the Australian government and also delays in visa processing. Lastly, on this slide, we are seeking to sub-license or sublease surplus classrooms to improve utilization levels. And we're also in the process of exiting some of our smaller offices located around the country and having those employees relocate into the main campuses in those sites.
I'll now turn to the macro environment and NextEd's responses to the macro environment. So slide 11. No doubt, everybody on today's call has seen and read and heard media over the last, particularly in the last few months and even the last few days, around the federal government targeting a reduction of international student numbers to assist in halving net migration to Australia, by 2025. We've mentioned in previous updates that we think it's an unfair to link international students to housing crisis or, to employment pressures or inflation pressures. And there's lots of expert commentary out there suggesting that linking those concerns to international student industry is unreasonable.
You'll see on the graphs on this slide, on the right-hand side, NextEd does continue to outperform the industry in terms of international student visa approval rates, but it has experienced a significant increase in the number of approvals since January this year. Despite maintaining our reputable recruitment practices with a broad range of nationalities and having received no advice from government or government departments or regulators about any change in the assessment criteria for the way that visa applications are being looked at, considered, and assessed. We note that in May this year, a draft ESOS Bill was lodged, and one of the measures in that bill is proposing student limits or caps from twenty twenty-five, and that this draft legislation is currently subject to a Senate inquiry. Again, there's been a lot of media around this.
I'd be very surprised if people are not reading the same things we're reading, and the report from the Senate committee is due to be released on the sixth of September, and there is enormous lobbying effort happening underway across the entire tertiary education industry to put some sensible amendments to that draft legislation to protect what is an important industry, including the way that the government is proposing caps. We do, as NextEd—look, we do support actions that have been taken to remove unscrupulous operators from the industry, and from our industry insights, we think most of those unscrupulous operators have effectively already stopped trading.
You've got, through, and particularly through the way that if you were targeting, low-quality students, you're likely to have much higher than industry average visa rejection rates, which means you don't have a sustainable business anymore anyway. So I do think that through activities already undertaken by the government, that a lot of the unscrupulous behaviors have effectively already been wiped out, and we do, in that context, remain concerned about future negative impacts on the quality providers in the sector. It's worth pointing out lastly on this slide, that along with the visa approval rates, which we've noted, that we are experiencing significant delays in large visa applications being processed. We're seeing, applications that would historically be processed in several days, now taking, in some cases, many months.
So that causes quite a lot of administrative burden from our perspective, but it also means that students are missing commencement dates and having their Australian study experiences disrupted through those visa processing delays. If I look at NextEd, turn to slide 12 and look at NextEd's responses to market conditions. Whilst there continues to be uncertainty and proposed draft legislation, which may or may not pass in its current format, we are focusing on what we can and controlling what we can. So firstly, we are focusing on outgrowing our domestic student revenues and profits. Domestic student revenues and profits are not impacted by immigration policies, and we are doing that for both of our vocational business and our higher education business operations.
As I already said, we're focusing our growth on high demand, higher margin vocational courses where we are seeing higher rates of visa approval. And we also believe that the courses that we're introducing are aligned to the Federal Government's migration strategy, which was first tabled late last calendar year, and it goes towards addressing Australia's future and current workforce needs. We are encouraging our English language students to package their studies, NextEd English language, with NextEd vocational courses. And we do think, and probably partly why we're seeing high visa approval rates, is it does demonstrate their genuine intent. But from a value proposition, it also helps NextEd achieve higher lifetime student value from those packaged students. Michael's already touched on reductions to our cost base.
We indicated a few months ago in a trading update, we were targeting AUD 5 million of savings from early FY 2025, and we're pleased to confirm we've done that. We're on track to achieve those cost reductions in FY 2025. We've also touched on. We've ceased our campus expansion, and we've commenced the process of exiting or subleasing surplus classroom capacity, including our Thomas Street campus in Sydney, which we exited in July. We're going to move our investment cash flow requirements in FY 2025 to maintenance CapEx mode, under AUD 100 million. Michael will touch on that a little bit later.
He'll also touch on that we recently entered into a contingent liability facility with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia to free up about AUD 9 million of cash, which was previously secured to or put on term deposit to back bank guarantees. Lastly, on this slide, we are monitoring and continually monitoring opportunities to pick up and recruit students who become displaced from other colleges which are financially distressed. It is an unfortunate fact that is happening as we speak. Earlier this month, I can confirm that NextEd enrolled approximately 60 students in Adelaide who were displaced from a small standalone English language college that had to close. These are opportunities that we will remain alert to.
For those that have been following the NextEd Group story, through COVID and back in the RedHill days, where Michael and myself were CEO and CFO of the old RedHill business, is that one of the successes of RedHill during COVID was being able to secure enrollments from students displaced from other colleges. It's not the most appealing way to recruit a student, but we've been there, we've done that, and we'll do it again if the current situation doesn't improve for smaller, less financially viable colleges and organizations in the sector. I will now hand you back to Michael to take us through some of the more details on the financial results.
Okay, thanks, Glenn. And I'll just turn to slide 14. As mentioned earlier, revenue for the FY 2024 year was AUD 111.4 million, so it was an increase of 9% over the prior period. Gross margin grew by 1%, which was mainly due to the reduction in the higher margin technology and design courses. Operating costs increased 5% over the prior year, which is less than the increase in revenue. However, operating costs in the second half year were circa AUD 2 million lower than the first half, following the active actions to reduce costs in response to the external environment, and I'll have a little bit more to say about our cost reduction actions shortly.
We're required to test intangibles for impairment at least annually, and so intangibles consist mostly of acquired intangibles recognized post the RedHill acquisition. As a direct consequence of the federal government actions, this has resulted in NextEd recording a non-cash impairment charge over intangible assets of AUD 28.9 million. Impairments have been recorded in the technology and design, Go Study and international vocational segments, and there's no impairment recorded on the domestic vocational sector. Assets impaired include goodwill of AUD 22.9 million, brand names of AUD 3.7 million, training materials of AUD 2.2 million, agent relationships of AUD 200,000. And I just reemphasize, this is all non-cash.
Depreciation and finance expenses increased as a result of the campus expansions, and the non-cash impairment charge is really the main cause of the statutory loss after tax of AUD 31.3 million. Normalizing for the one-time items, including the impairment, lease costs incurred ahead of revenue generation, and for the amortization of previously acquired intangibles, NPAT (A) was AUD 0.2 million . Turning to slide 15 and looking at the segments. International, Vocational, and Go Study were the revenue highlights, growing at 15% and 14% respectively. Newly launched vocational courses in hospitality and healthcare delivered growth in the vocational international vocational segment, in the second half year being up 34% versus the first half year. It was pleasing to see Go Study revenue of 14% and a return to profitability in FY 2024.
Onshore revenues contributed 60% of total revenue in 2024, up three percentage points versus the prior year, as more onshore students commenced their courses. Revenue growth in the domestic vocational business was also a highlight, especially in the second half of the year. Revenue increased 5% over the full year, but the second half grew 38%, following the opening of the new Adelaide campus and some further operational improvements related to student progression. Technology and design revenues declined 20%, largely due to the loss of some students who switched to cheaper vocational courses offered by other colleges and then being constrained in recruiting new students by government visa policy. I'll turn to slide 16, in our cost management approach.
We have a disciplined approach to cost management, and we moved swiftly to implement cost reduction actions, as a result of the federal government actions to reduce international student numbers. Cost reductions were initiated in Q3 of 2024 and gained traction in the final quarter of the year. Cost reduction actions were implemented across all functions and departments, and we're targeting to realize annualized cost reductions of AUD 5 million in FY 2025, which Glenn has already touched upon. Having realized AUD 1.5 million in the second half of FY 2024 versus the first half, we're well on our way to realizing these cost reduction targets. We'll turn to slide 17 and talk around cash flow.
Operating cash flow has improved in the second half of the year as benefits from cost reductions began to become realized, combined with higher collections. Operating cash flows in the second half were AUD 3.6 million, which was a AUD 5.5 million improvement versus the first half of the year. CapEx was AUD 11.4 million, as the campus expansion program was implemented and finalized. During the second half of the year, Glenn touched on, we signed a bank guarantee facility of AUD 10 million. That was effectively freeing up approximately AUD 9 million that had previously been used as security for bank guarantees over leased premises. Cash balances at the end of the year were AUD 19.3 million, and NextEd continues to have nil financial debt. Turning to slide 18.
As noted on the previous slide, NextEd has no financial debt and AUD 19.4 million of cash. The cash amount at the end of the year is higher than the cash balance of AUD 18 million at the end of April, as we reported in our trading update in May. This result reflects the cost management actions implemented, plus an ongoing focus on receivables collections. Contract Liabilities have increased since December 2023 by a little over AUD 3 million. The main reason for this is the high number of vocational students who are invoiced in advance, with payments received every two months. It's also the reason for the increase in trade receivables.
As noted previously, in prior periods, NextEd had funds on deposit to secure guarantees of the leased premises, and these were treated as a non-current asset. Following the implementation of the bank guarantee facility, these funds were freed up for other purposes and included in cash on hand at the end of the period. I'll now hand back to Glenn.
Thanks, Michael. So we now turn to slide twenty, looking at the immediate outlook for the NextEd Group. Over the longer term, we do expect government policy will be enacted to protect international education export earnings, which are big, and are also very closely correlated to other industries, including tourism sector, and in supporting GDP growth, as well as supporting Australia's future workforce requirements and the broader economy. And again, I think we've all been reading a whole bunch of commentary in media around just some of the aspects of what the international education contributes to Australia. While this remains uncertainty, NextEd is positioning itself to capitalize on government changes once they're clarified, and to take advantage of what is likely to be a tightened competitive landscape.
So we will continue to execute on our focus strategy, which does leverage our differentiated and unique market position. And we put a slide in the appendices for people just to touch on what those differentiation aspects are. We will leverage our high-demand skill course range and the study pathways and partnerships that we have to offer to students, including in those key critical skilled areas where there is strong and growing workforce demand. We will leverage our national campus footprint in prime central CBD locations, including some those which are classified as regional locations, where there are significant revenue growth potential without further property investment.
And we'll continue to leverage our organization's track record of adapting, changing, pivoting, being agile to changes in market conditions and the regulatory environment, in an industry where we do strongly believe there are compelling long-term growth drivers. So I'd like to, pause there and hand proceedings back to Kylie, who has been monitoring questions that have been submitted by attendees of the call.
I'd now like to open the briefing to questions online. If you would like to submit a question, please do so by clicking on the Q&A button or icon at the bottom of your screen. So we've had a few questions already come through in relation to student caps. Glenn, have you received any direct notification yet from the government of student caps that will apply to NextEd?
I can confirm that NextEd has received a proposed higher education cap, which, you know, which relates to bachelor degree courses, and that we're currently considering those implications. I do wanna note, as we're going through that process, is that we do deliver our higher education courses to domestic students as well as to international students, and with domestic students, as I mentioned earlier, there are no growth constraints. I can confirm that in relation to the vocational sector, we have received no notification at this point in time. So I don't want to speculate about that until we receive any some further clarification or clarity on what those proposed caps may be, or the possible implications that that may entail.
Draft legislation that's gone to the Senate committee does suggest that English language courses will be excluded from any caps, so I do think that's important to just bear in mind when thinking about implications for the NextEd Group. We do run and own one of the most successful English language private colleges in Australia, so that is something that is worth bearing in mind as we move through this period of seeking clarification, and I'm also happy to confirm that NextEd is participating in lobbying efforts through our association body membership and directly with government department representatives to seek to protect the longer-term viability of this important industry, and in so doing, our own interests, of course.
Right. Thanks, Glenn. Next question. The government got rid of the ability to lodge subsequent visa applications while being onshore earlier in the year. Has NextEd seen a material impact on its students transitioning from ELICOS to VET courses?
So yes, we have certainly seen, both in our higher education business and in our vocational business, greater student retention. So they're not able to jump off a course and move to an alternative visa type. So that means that we have been able to retain our international students doing bachelor degrees, but it also means that the students that have signed up for study pathways and packages, so to your point, Kylie, we're seeing significantly lower attrition of those students going off onto other usually cheaper alternatives.
What factors are driving growth in hospitality teaching revenue? The comment is that appears like a surprise on the upside.
No, look, I wouldn't say surprise. I think it's an important industry which is not going anywhere. And it's an industry where I think it is important to have skilled people who are safe and well-trained in what they're delivering once they've undertaken their learning experience. It is an industry where we saw, not only from the scale and opportunity in the industry, we also thought from a competitor set that we could successfully compete. And it's one of the reasons that we have invested fairly significantly in our on-site industrial teaching kitchens, and that just adds to our competitive advantage. As you've kind of alluded to through discussion points and in the presentation, it is an area that we're seeing greater visa approval rates, growing demand from students, and I think it's yes, just one to watch as we move into FY 2025.
Thank you. Can you quantify the upside that could come from large regional centers of Adelaide and the Gold Coast? In particular, how much capacity do these centers have to impact revenue and EBITDA on the upside going forward?
Yeah, look, I think realistically, unfortunately, it's too early to comment too much on what those opportunities might be. There's just, there's not sufficient detail. However, we are definitely seeing, even through the caps that were announced this week for higher education providers, so the public universities and ourselves, that there is clearly a push to support regional centers in the higher education space, and that comes from the apportionment of caps at the public universities. In theory, it sounds like less going to the Group of Eight universities and more going into the regional-based universities. So thematically, I do think it's one to watch, but in terms of the details, there's not sufficient detail yet.
Thanks. Michael, one for you. Do you believe cash on hand will continue to grow?
Look, it's a really uncertain external environment that we have at the moment, and we're taking a cautious approach and monitoring the situation and what it may mean for us. So given all the uncertainty around the external environment, I think it'd be imprudent to comment whether we think cash is gonna grow at the moment.
Back to you, I think, Glenn. What percentage of English students have you been able to get to package up a NextEd vocational course in their visa application, and what was that percentage previously?
We have reported in trading updates over the last couple of years the percentage of progression, and investors who were following the story over the last couple of years will remember that we had a bit of a dip in progression because of what was then called the 408 visa, where students were abandoning their courses early to go on to the one-year unlimited working rights visa without any need to study. And that certainly had a pretty big downward pressure on the progression of English language students through to packaging with vocational courses.
We are in a zone of 25%-30% of our students now, the current student cohorts, who are packaging English language with their vocational studies, which is almost back to where we were pre-COVID. Now, in terms of what it means moving forward, we again need the clarity from government on what's happening with visa policy and legislation, but we've certainly, over the last six to nine months, after students were no longer able to move on to a 408 working visa, we've certainly seen those progression rates go back to where we thought they would be.
Thanks, Glenn. Do AoC students who have their visas rejected get their application fees refunded?
No, and I do think that's something that is being actively lobbied at the moment because it feels unreasonable and a little unfair.
Just moving to another topic. As governments propose bans for cross-ownership between colleges and agents, what's your thoughts on that, and what action will you take around that?
Yeah, so what we're seeing and through discussions we've had directly with some government representatives, the concept of cross-ownership, they've backed away from blanket banning of cross-ownership of colleges and agencies, and instead taking a far more pragmatic approach by considering individual circumstances of organizations as part of fit and proper person declarations, which directors and senior executives of colleges, including myself, are required to sign and make declarations around.
And as part of registration or re-registration processes. So instead of a blanket banning and there is nothing in the draft ESOS legislation amendments to propose a blanket banning, but there has been discussion with the industry about considering cross-ownership as part of looking at fit and proper person declarations and registration processes. My view on that is that sounds a whole lot more sensible to me.
Great. And just to follow on, on the question in relation to the benefits to regional centers from these policy changes, are you able to provide any sort of thoughts on, you know, financial benefits for NextEd?
It's genuinely too early to go out and provide too much commentary in that area. We really need to get some clarity from the government, and it may be that it's something that evolves over time as opposed to something which is implemented immediately, so I do think it's just one to watch for the medium term, not necessarily straight away.
I might just add to that. On slide nine in the presentation, if we think about the capacity that we have to grow in Queensland and South Australia, we have 12 classrooms that currently are unutilized in Queensland, and five in South Australia, on a weekday basis. So we've got plenty of capacity to grow in both those markets.
Great. Just back on the student caps, I understand the TEQSA has now informed private higher education providers of their 25 cap numbers. What's the cap that's been allocated to the Academy of Interactive Technology, and how does it compare to the current enrollment numbers?
So as I said earlier, we're yes, we have received the same letter, and it's for the higher education component only, the bachelor degrees only. We are considering that at the moment. We're considering that in conjunction with what possible amendments might come through. So it's too early to make any comments at this stage.
If ELICOS is not included in the cap when the legislation is passed, how positive is this for the company?
As I said, English language is a big, big component of NextEd Group's capabilities. So again, without going into sort of too much detail on what that might look like, I do think it's one, it's certainly an area that NextEd will be putting quite a lot of focus on, as you would expect. And it's probably, again, for those investors that have followed the NextEd Group or previous ex-RedHill story, they will recall that the shape of even English language revenues over time has changed.
When I first joined the company, a little over 12 years ago, the what you would call a leisure market for English language, where you would have working holiday or shorter visa student stays in Australia, was a very substantial part of the overall English market at that point in time, so I think it's a skill that NextEd Group certainly has in servicing that market. It's certainly a skill we've not lost, and as I've said, we will be agile and we'll adapt quickly once we have clarity on what that could mean for our English language operations.
Okay. I'd just like to remind participants that, if you would like to submit a question, you can do so by clicking on the Q&A icon at the bottom of your screen. Another question has come through: Will ELICOS students still be able to transition into a vocational course?
They will be much better served packaging their student course, packaging their courses as part of their initial visa application while they're still overseas. So, the draft legislation does suggest that once the student's onshore, it'll be a lot harder for them to seek a new visa application while they're already in Australia. And we're okay with that. So I said, I think, it works in our favor for a student to pre-package as part of that initial visa application, doing English language plus another course. It's something that we've been encouraging now for quite some time, and it, it's... And given that government intention to make it harder for somebody who's already in Australia to move on to a new student visa, it just means that getting that initial visa application right will be more important.
Excellent. And can you remind investors what opportunities you expect to emerge from the regulatory changes?
I feel like a bit of a broken record. There's still a lot of uncertainty, and we don't yet have all the details. But I did look, I think we've touched on a few of the opportunities here. I touched on that the draft legislation proposes to exclude English language. I touched on that NextEd Group is seeing higher rates of visa approvals on its skills-based training courses. I would like to think, but don't know yet, that once things settle, that the high rate of visa rejections that we're seeing, which is disruptive for everybody, prospective students as well as administratively for the organization, is that we no longer see those. We've heard thematically that the government is seeking to support regional learning for both domestic and international students.
So I, without having further details, it's really hard for me to elaborate on what they might mean. But thematically, there certainly will likely be opportunities that emerge for NextEd Group. And as I said, if not immediately, then I fully expect there will be ongoing evolution of the legislative environment and lobbying efforts to make sure that over the medium and longer term, this important sector, supporting school learning and supporting workforce needs, is supported in the right way.
Glenn, do you expect to release an update to the market when caps are finalized?
I'll get Michael to touch on that one. Yeah.
So look, we're
Uh, sorry.
Sorry.
Look, so I think the reality is there's going to be a whole bunch of stuff that we're gonna have to work through. We are very alert to our continuous disclosure requirements. There's absolutely no doubt of that. We're closely monitoring what lobbying efforts are being made to the Senate inquiry and discussions you know, every day almost with our association bodies and government and departmental representatives on what may be coming out in future weeks or possibly even longer, and we will provide details when there is clarity.
At the moment, there's just too much uncertainty to speculate, but I know, again, feeling a bit like a broken record, I just want to reiterate again that we're used to these changes. We've been through this process many times. This is not our first rodeo, and the business still has very strong foundations and capabilities to be able to pivot and position itself based on what comes out of this next iteration of legislative environment.
Okay, thank you. That concludes the question session. If you do have any further questions, please contact Glenn or Michael directly, or send your question via email to investors@nexted.com.au. So I'd now like to hand over to Glenn for some closing remarks.
Thank you, Kylie. Thanks for coming along and hosting today's webinar presentation. Thank you also to my partner in crime, Michael Fahey, CFO extraordinaire. In these challenging times, it's great to have somebody that I feel I could work very closely with, have enormous trust with, and I can assure everybody on the call there's an enormous amount of hearty debates being had in the background on a daily basis, so that we can do the best thing by the business and the investors moving forward. Thanks, everyone, for joining the call today, and we look forward to providing an update soon.