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Immigration Daily News NSW State Migration Plan - Skilled Subclass 190 and 489 visa newsAustralian Immigration Daily News
Breaking Australian immigration news brought to you by Migration Alliance and associated bloggers.
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NSW State Migration Plan - Skilled Subclass 190 and 489 visa news
So, has the NSW State Government makes it official regarding the State Migration Plan for 2013?
I have just received this email from a Member of Migration Alliance and I think it is newsworthy.
It would appear based on the occupational ceiling report for these occupations....
- ICT Business and Systems Analysts - 2611
- Chemical and Materials Engineers - 2331
- Electronics Engineers - 2334
- Telecommunications Engineering Professionals - 2633
- Other Engineering Professional - 2339
- Software and Applications Programmers - 2613
....that DIAC may have issued invitations for the entire year’s worth of skilled independent places for these occupations in the last month, and has now shut down the states from nominating any candidates for these occupations via the state sponsored skilled visa (190 and 489). Hardly fair to those who expected DIAC to parcel out the places across the 12 month period, rather than filling them up all at once and instituting an 11+ month wait for anybody who didn’t get in.
Plus, nobody is releasing the exact occupations that are shut down – are we to infer from the message that all occupations in each of the 4-digit groups are now closed for state sponsorship? I’m getting calls and emails from more than a few very unhappy clientsI have enquired from DIAC on the status for the remainder of the program year (ie, until 30 Jun 2014) and will post news in here or via newsblast as soon as I have it.
http://www.business.nsw.gov.au/live-and-work-in-nsw/visa-and-migration/state-migration-plan
Immigration blog
I believe the TAFE system we have in this country is a point of differentiation that is not adequately exploited by the gatekeepers in the immigration regulation system. Our TAFE system has the ability to produce the skilled personnel demanded by business.
University and higher education produces graduates with a broader skills base. These graduates are equipped to tackle a wider range of issues than the straight technical course work studied in their undergraduate program.
Pulling down the skilled migration program is not productive. I noted with particular annoyance, an article in The Australian, The Herald-Sun, The Daily Telegraph and News.com (2/August), citing Bob Birrell on the question of "oversupply of accountants".
Bob seems to hold a model of higher education in which a graduate is obliged to progress from university into an occupation that bears the same name as the course from which he or she graduated. That is just nonsense. I am proud of my qualifications as an engineer, but frankly, in the 40 years since graduation, I have not applied more than a few per cent of the academic material studied in my undergraduate and post graduate engineering degrees.
The purpose of higher education is to prepare graduates for a diverse future. The subject matter studied is preparation for a good thinking processes, the examinations being a test of learning ability. Graduates from university must go into the business and professional life ready for diverse problems that may (I stress "may") draw on the academic programs recently completed. But more importantly than technical competence, the graduates are equipped with problem solving skills gained during the university education.
The Immigration Department's graduate skilled migration program has a similarly narrow view of education outcomes. The university program completed by a graduate must be "shoe-horned" into a statistical definition of an occupation. Progress to permanent residence or even temporary working rights is not available unless the graduate's program can be pushed through the narrow, and I would say, artificial window of the definition of an occupation.
To have graduates prepared for a narrowly focused career, as Bob Birrell seems to preach and immigration policy makers undoubtedly impose, is a denial of the basic worth of diverse higher education.
If Australia wants narrowly defined career paths, we should advocate and promote TAFE programs, rather than decry the worth of the broader education students receive in the higher education sector.
There seems to be a case for two pathways; one for TAFE type graduates whose career will follow from the skills achieved in their studies, and another more liberally specified pathway for graduates to enter the workforce by the fact of having a university degree, but not constrained to an occupation with the same name as their undergraduate or post graduate degree.
Best wishes,
John Findley.
Registered Migration Agent, and recruitment representative of higher education and TAFE organisations.