[Linux-aus] Interview with Mark Lloyd from ACS on compulsory accreditation

[James Purser]

On Fri, 2006-09-29 at 19:48 +1000, Brenda Aynsley wrote:
> James I think in the interview wrongly puts the second to last question 
> to Mark which james called migration but it was about skills assessment 
> and its not the same thing.  Why?

Brenda, the reason I asked that question was there is a general
impression that ACS has the power to certify or not certify skilled
migrant in the ICT industry. If they are not certified then it would
certainly make it more difficult for the skilled migrant to gain entry
to the country on a skilled migration visa.

Now you've stated that ACS only "assesses" rather than certifies, and I
have reason to doubt you, however the impression about certification
still remains.

If such an independent body was setup then it would only be logical that
this role be moved from ACS to this body, and I was interested in
hearing what the response to that would be.

> ACS does *not* approve anyone for admission to Australia, they assess 
> qualifications on behalf of DIMA who make the decision about migration 
> and I'm sure that decision is based on more than just their 
> qualification equivalency.

This is true DIMIA is the final decision maker in any migration matters,
however ACS does play a vital role in the process.

> cheers
> brenda
> ps avi your account of your experience is flawed in terms of the 
> explanation above, but it does show how careless ACS is in communicating 
> with the people it interacts with.  I will pass this feedback on to them 
> with your permission.

Just one more thing, before we tell someone that what they are saying is
"flawed" we might want to hear more about their side of the story.

I appreciate that you may be feeling ACS is under attack right now,
however I truly believe that the issues raised by the proposed scheme
for the FOSS community are only now being explored. I have not heard of
any interaction between ACS and any FOSS body, of which Linux Australia
is the most prominent, and the answers I received from Mark didn't do
anything to change my views on that. This needs to be addressed,
especially given the rising importance of Free and Open Source Software
in both the private and public sectors.

Thank you for taking the time to help us understand different aspects of
ACS. As you can see, there is a lot to discuss.
-- 
James Purser
Producer/Presenter - Open Source On The Air
A LocalFOSS Production
http://www.localfoss.org
irc: #localfoss on irc.freenode.net
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 191 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
Url : http://lists.linux.org.au/pipermail/linux-aus/attachments/20060929/852903c8/attachment-0001.pgp