Australia visa subclass 176 – sponsorship condition

Recently I came across a question on an Australian immigration forum about the Australia visa  subclass 176 and subclass 175 that I thought would be a good question to address for the benefit of anyone who has a similar query.

It read….

Hi,

I have plans for migrating to Australia and applying for an Australia visa, I have gone through the points test and the result was 115. As I can see it, the only Australia visa applicable for my case for the time being is 176 (state sponsored visa).

My question is what would be the differences between 176 and 175 Australia visa types in terms of responsibilities and engagements, i.e If I go for 176 Australia visa, do I have certain commitments to the state sponsors me, like to work for the state for a certain period or to reside in it and never leaves.

My other question is regarding the occupational assessment, I have graduated from a university based in the United Arab Emirates I’m afraid that my degree won’t be recognized and I will be asked to take some courses to cover the missing subjects. I wonder if there is some kind of a list or booklet for the universities in the middle east which are fully recognized by the assessing organizations or at least the subjects which need to be covered in order to fully recognize the degree.

By the way, I’m an Electrical Engineer with B.Sc degree and working experience in my field for 2 years.

Thanks and regards,

Chabok

My advice to Chabok as an Australian registered migration agent would be:-

If you do apply for a subclass 176 Australia visa based on state sponsorship from an Australia state you will be obligated to live in that state for at least 2 years from the time of your arrival in Australia.  This is a condition of receiving the state’s sponsorship of your application.  After your 2 years of residence in the state you are then able to move to another state if you wish.

The subclass 175 Australia visa does not have a a sponsorship requirement and is known as a skilled independent visa.

In relation to tertiary qualifications from different countries, in Chabok’s case the UAE.  Country Education Profiles are available from Australian Education International There are CEP for the education system of a country, and the information can prove useful in determining how Australia rates the qualifications of certain universities of that country.  Chabok will be able to find a CEP for the UAE on the website.  There will be a fee AU$40 to purchase a single CEP but worth the exercise before spending time an energy on a pre-application skill assessment as part of the Australian visa immigration process.

Good news for Chabok – Electrical Engineer is an occupation on the new skilled occupations list.  For professionals engineers out there considering applying for an Australia visa to emigrate and who have engineer degree qualifications that are not recognised by either the Sydney or Washington Accord, you need to look into the option of having your qualifications assessed through the Competency Demonstration Report (CDR) pathway.  This involves writing a detailed report of 3 career episodes which demonstrate their professional engineering competencies.  More information on what is involved can be found at EngineersAustralia