"It's a need for that follow-up, initial reports at the Department of Immigration that an ongoing need for the institution or the state authority to later inform the Department of Immigration as soon as it does have the data from coronial inquiry as to the cause of death," she said.

"At the moment, I've seen perhaps a legacy of many, or earlier days when we didn't have so many students, but this hasn't been properly sorted out," she said.

There is no legal requirement for the Immigration Department to receive reports of deaths or injuries of international students. But the Department does facilitate travel for bereaved or concerned relatives.

Glenn Withers from Universities Australia said it is not anecdotally clear if the problems which foreign students face are bigger than those which domestic students face.

"So, despite them being in a strange country, it does twist a little more to these issues of accidental deaths in hiking, or beaches, and less road deaths because they don't have as much car there ownership as the locals," he said.

"But, they're the twists we'd like to look and help with, but overall it is a problem of young people getting out and about and doing things," Withers said.

He said there was definitely a lack of information about the deaths of foreign students.

"It's been an issue now that's been raised and one of those, one of the many issues that are being considered before the taskforces in the various states," he said.

... contd.