Skills Assessment for Engineers moving to Australia

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Engineers Australia, skilled migrants, Washington Accord,

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Getting your engineering skills recognized in Australia

If you are considering obtaining an Australian work visa, you might have already heard of Engineers Australia.

Engineers Australia (EA) is the professional body for engineers of various kinds and performs Skills Assessments for migration purposes.

Everyone applying for a visa within the General Skilled Migration Program needs to obtain a positive Skills Assessment. If you are an Engineer, you must go through Engineers Australia.

Some countries have agreements with Engineers Australia (Sydney, Dublin and Washington Accords) and engineering degrees from such countries are considered equivalent to Australian degrees, making the Skills Assessment process a straight-forward one.

The Sydney Accord

The Sydney Accord was signed in June 2001, by seven founding signatories representing; Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Ireland, New Zealand, United Kingdom and South Africa.

Currently, there are ten signatories that make up the Sydney Accord.

Qualifications accredited or recognized by other signatories are recognised by each signatory as being substantially equivalent to accredited or recognised qualifications within its own jurisdiction.

  • Australia
  • Canada
  • Chinese Taipei
  • Hong Kong China
  • Ireland
  • Korea
  • New Zealand
  • South Africa
  • United Kingdom
  • United States
  • Malaysia

Provisional Signatories

  • Peru
  • Sri Lanka

The Washington Accord

  • Australia
  • Canada
  • China
  • Chinese Taipei
  • Hong Kong China
  • India
  • Ireland
  • Japan
  • Korea
  • Malaysia
  • New Zealand
  • Russia
  • Singapore
  • South Africa
  • Sri Lanka
  • Turkey
  • United States
  • United Kingdom
  • Pakistan
  • Peru

Provisional Signatories

  • Bangladesh
  • Costa Rica
  • Mexico
  • Philippines
  • Chile

The Dublin Accord

  • Australia
  • Canada
  • Ireland
  • New Zealand
  • Korea
  • South Africa
  • United Kingdom
  • United States
  • Malaysia

Sourced from: International Engineering Alliance

What if your qualifications are not considered equivalent to an Australian degree?

However, applicants who are from countries which are not signatories of any reciprocal agreement with Australia must go through a detailed assessment of their qualifications and prepare a “Competency Demonstration Report (CDR)”.

The CDR is like an essay in which the applicant needs to demonstrate how he/she applied their knowledge of engineering in practice. The CDR is mandatory and must be written following specifications laid down in the Migration Skills Assessment booklet published by Engineers Australia.

It seems that several companies, mainly outside of Australia, now offer to write CDRs for a fee, but we would strongly advise you to write your own essay as per the EA guidelines: “The CDR must be all your own work.

An application showing evidence of fraud will be rejected and the applicant banned for 12 Months. Bigger cases of fraud involving more than one or two applicants may lead to a bigger investigation.

Engineers Australia has no hesitation in referring confirmed cases of fraud to DIBP’’. Plagiarism detection software such as Turnitin is used to find out if any information in the report has been copied from published material or previously submitted CDR.

Seemingly, copied content from published sources and previously submitted CDR reports is the number one cause of CDR rejection.

So good luck and happy writing!

Disclaimer

Information provided on this web site “Site” by ConsultANZ, is intended for reference only. The information contained herein is designed solely to provide guidance to the user and is not intended to be a substitute for the user seeking personalized professional advice based on specific factual situations.

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