Over it...

Old Sep 22nd 2010, 1:15 am
  #1  
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Default Over it...

Had a call from our MA this morning to say that our case has been referred to the policy makers at Canberra due to a question over the legitimacy of my academic qualifications.

Our story is quite protracted. We arrived here back in Feb 2006 on a 457 visa, and submitted for a skills assessment to the ACS with both HNC in Software Engineering and Novell CNE qualifications behind me. The assessment was accepted and were informed that we satisified the requirements of Group B. I queried at the time why I had been assesed on the HNC rather than the CNE and was told that this was the higher and more appropriate qualification hence why I was assesed as a 2231-19, rather than as a systems manager. I even did my IELTS for the extra points that would provide. We lodged our 176 application in August 2008.

I changed companies on May 2009 and was granted a new 457. When the changes last year were announced, we were told that it would be 2012 before our application was likely to be considered, so talked to my current company who agreed to sponsor through ENS. Our existing application was converted from 176 to 121, so that we would not have to repay the fees.

The employer nomination was approved three weeks back and the MA informed us yesterday that the CO was finalising the case. Today she called back to say that the CO had questioned whether the HNC was an appropriate qualification, and that it would be referred to the policy makers in Canberra for a decision. However, the CO did not believe that the qualification was equivalent to an Australian diploma.

So the worst case scenario is that our application, despite being approved by ACS and having been verified by the migration agent, will be rejected. In which case we have been told that we will need to resubmit the application and pay a new application fee under another category

I really don't know whether I can do this anymore, if nothing else from a financial perspective. My daughter is in school paying international fees, we are being hammered on the overseas visitor medical insurance and we lost our LAFHA over two years ago.

I know that things could be a lot worse, but I wonder whether we should just cut our losses and go home.
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Old Sep 22nd 2010, 1:23 am
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Default Re: Over it...

Originally Posted by Sattman
Had a call from our MA this morning to say that our case has been referred to the policy makers at Canberra due to a question over the legitimacy of my academic qualifications.

Our story is quite protracted. We arrived here back in Feb 2006 on a 457 visa, and submitted for a skills assessment to the ACS with both HNC in Software Engineering and Novell CNE qualifications behind me. The assessment was accepted and were informed that we satisified the requirements of Group B. I queried at the time why I had been assesed on the HNC rather than the CNE and was told that this was the higher and more appropriate qualification hence why I was assesed as a 2231-19, rather than as a systems manager. I even did my IELTS for the extra points that would provide. We lodged our 176 application in August 2008.

I changed companies on May 2009 and was granted a new 457. When the changes last year were announced, we were told that it would be 2012 before our application was likely to be considered, so talked to my current company who agreed to sponsor through ENS. Our existing application was converted from 176 to 121, so that we would not have to repay the fees.

The employer nomination was approved three weeks back and the MA informed us yesterday that the CO was finalising the case. Today she called back to say that the CO had questioned whether the HNC was an appropriate qualification, and that it would be referred to the policy makers in Canberra for a decision. However, the CO did not believe that the qualification was equivalent to an Australian diploma.

So the worst case scenario is that our application, despite being approved by ACS and having been verified by the migration agent, will be rejected. In which case we have been told that we will need to resubmit the application and pay a new application fee under another category

I really don't know whether I can do this anymore, if nothing else from a financial perspective. My daughter is in school paying international fees, we are being hammered on the overseas visitor medical insurance and we lost our LAFHA over two years ago.

I know that things could be a lot worse, but I wonder whether we should just cut our losses and go home.
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Old Sep 22nd 2010, 4:17 am
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Default Re: Over it...

Originally Posted by Sattman
Had a call from our MA this morning to say that our case has been referred to the policy makers at Canberra due to a question over the legitimacy of my academic qualifications.

Our story is quite protracted. We arrived here back in Feb 2006 on a 457 visa, and submitted for a skills assessment to the ACS with both HNC in Software Engineering and Novell CNE qualifications behind me. The assessment was accepted and were informed that we satisified the requirements of Group B. I queried at the time why I had been assesed on the HNC rather than the CNE and was told that this was the higher and more appropriate qualification hence why I was assesed as a 2231-19, rather than as a systems manager. I even did my IELTS for the extra points that would provide. We lodged our 176 application in August 2008.

I changed companies on May 2009 and was granted a new 457. When the changes last year were announced, we were told that it would be 2012 before our application was likely to be considered, so talked to my current company who agreed to sponsor through ENS. Our existing application was converted from 176 to 121, so that we would not have to repay the fees.

The employer nomination was approved three weeks back and the MA informed us yesterday that the CO was finalising the case. Today she called back to say that the CO had questioned whether the HNC was an appropriate qualification, and that it would be referred to the policy makers in Canberra for a decision. However, the CO did not believe that the qualification was equivalent to an Australian diploma.

So the worst case scenario is that our application, despite being approved by ACS and having been verified by the migration agent, will be rejected. In which case we have been told that we will need to resubmit the application and pay a new application fee under another category

I really don't know whether I can do this anymore, if nothing else from a financial perspective. My daughter is in school paying international fees, we are being hammered on the overseas visitor medical insurance and we lost our LAFHA over two years ago.

I know that things could be a lot worse, but I wonder whether we should just cut our losses and go home.
This is an old thread but it does appear to say that a HNC equals a diploma. It may just be that the Case Officer hasn't come across one before? There are others in the archives with the same info too.
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Old Sep 22nd 2010, 8:11 am
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Default Re: Over it...

Originally Posted by Sattman
Had a call from our MA this morning to say that our case has been referred to the policy makers at Canberra due to a question over the legitimacy of my academic qualifications.

Our story is quite protracted. We arrived here back in Feb 2006 on a 457 visa, and submitted for a skills assessment to the ACS with both HNC in Software Engineering and Novell CNE qualifications behind me. The assessment was accepted and were informed that we satisified the requirements of Group B. I queried at the time why I had been assesed on the HNC rather than the CNE and was told that this was the higher and more appropriate qualification hence why I was assesed as a 2231-19, rather than as a systems manager. I even did my IELTS for the extra points that would provide. We lodged our 176 application in August 2008.

I changed companies on May 2009 and was granted a new 457. When the changes last year were announced, we were told that it would be 2012 before our application was likely to be considered, so talked to my current company who agreed to sponsor through ENS. Our existing application was converted from 176 to 121, so that we would not have to repay the fees.

The employer nomination was approved three weeks back and the MA informed us yesterday that the CO was finalising the case. Today she called back to say that the CO had questioned whether the HNC was an appropriate qualification, and that it would be referred to the policy makers in Canberra for a decision. However, the CO did not believe that the qualification was equivalent to an Australian diploma.

So the worst case scenario is that our application, despite being approved by ACS and having been verified by the migration agent, will be rejected. In which case we have been told that we will need to resubmit the application and pay a new application fee under another category

I really don't know whether I can do this anymore, if nothing else from a financial perspective. My daughter is in school paying international fees, we are being hammered on the overseas visitor medical insurance and we lost our LAFHA over two years ago.

I know that things could be a lot worse, but I wonder whether we should just cut our losses and go home.
It might be worth spending some dollars and getting one of the well-known agents on here involved. If you get rejected the costs of going back home will dwarf the cost of an agent that MAY be able to help.
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Old Sep 23rd 2010, 7:10 am
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Default Re: Over it...

OK - so this afternoon things have taken a turn for the very bizarre.

We have received a mail from the Adelaide team requesting new copies of biodata pages and police checks relating to our original 175 application from 2008. This is from a different CO to the one from the original post.

It seems to me that something has become incredibly screwed up, and our 175 application (with a valid ACS assessment) has dropped into the lap of a CO within a couple of days of our ENS application (on which they are taking policy advice over my level of qualification) dropping into the lap of a CO in Parramatta. My understanding is that the ENS should have superceded the 175.

Our MA is a very well known global company that specialises in providing visa services to businesses, however I am starting to have grave concerns about what is going on, particularly as there have been a number of occurrences where things that seemed obvious to us were missed.

Are any of the MAs who visit the board prepared to offer an opinion ? If any of you are based in Sydney, quite happy to put some dollars on the table to walk through this and get some reassurance that my current MA are not incompetent, and are not destroying our visa hopes. Also whether we should continue with the 175, as that now seems to be the most likely way of getting the visa
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Old Sep 23rd 2010, 7:25 am
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Unhappy Re: Over it...

Sorry to hear the bad news, however, from my understanding, a HNC is not a Diploma.

HN"C" = Certificate
HN"D" = Diploma
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Old Sep 23rd 2010, 7:31 am
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Default Re: Over it...

Originally Posted by paddyb157
Sorry to hear the bad news, however, from my understanding, a HNC is not a Diploma.

HN"C" = Certificate
HN"D" = Diploma
But is sufficient for a 60 point Class B ACS skills assessment ?

And is at the same level as HND in the national qualification framework ?


But anyway, that's yesterdays issue
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Old Sep 24th 2010, 8:45 pm
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Default Re: Over it...

Quick update for anyone interested. Looks like this has been the most bizarre week.

In the same week that our ENS has been referred to Canberra, we were also granted a CO for our original 175 application who according to our MA is close to finalising.

Its fair to say that its been a stressful week. Somewhere along the line I've missed a change in policy as the purpose in applying for ENS was due to the announcement that we wre unlikely to get our GCM CO until 2012. The current processing mail stats that they are now processing non CSL \ SOL GSM applications :

Current Processing Dates

If your application date has recently come into our current processing
date range you should allow at least 6 weeks to enable a case officer to
complete the initial assessment. Please refrain from sending requests for
an update on the status of your application within this 6 week period.

Priority Processed Applications
Under the priority processing direction we are currently processing
applications with a nominated occupation on the new Skilled Occupation
List (SOL) – Schedule 3.

Applications lodged before the following dates are currently being
considered by a case officer:

Skilled – Independent (Migrant) subclass 175
VE 175 (e-lodged): 10 June 2008
VE 175 (paper): 10 June 2008


Skilled – Sponsored (Migrant) subclass 176
VE 176 (e-lodged): 10 June 2008
VE 176 (paper): 10 June 2008

Skilled – Regional Sponsored (Provisional) subclass 475
VF 475 (e-lodged): 10 June 2008
VF 475 (paper): 10 June 2008

Skilled – Independent Regional (Provisional) subclass 495 and
Skilled – Designated Area Sponsored subclass 496
UX 495 and UZ 496 (e-lodged and paper): All applicants who have an
occupation on the new Skilled Occupation List (SOL) – Schedule 3 have been
allocated.

Skilled – Independent (Residence) subclass 885
VB (paper): 9 February 2009

Skilled – Sponsored (Residence) subclass 886
VB 886 (paper): 9 February 2009

Skilled – Regional Sponsored (Provisional) subclass 487
VC 487 (paper): 20 February 2009

Just want to get it all over with now.....
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Old Sep 25th 2010, 2:19 am
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Default Re: Over it...

Originally Posted by paddyb157
Sorry to hear the bad news, however, from my understanding, a HNC is not a Diploma.

HN"C" = Certificate
HN"D" = Diploma
Paddy is right

HND= 16 units
HNC= 10 units
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Old Sep 25th 2010, 2:50 am
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Default Re: Over it...

It's better than a NVQ.

'Not Very Quick'.
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