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

Brenda Aynsley <bpa@iss.net.au> · Sat Sep 30 08:13:05 2006

Bret Busby wrote:

On Fri, 29 Sep 2006, Brenda Aynsley wrote:

The role that acs plays in migration is to assess, not certify, the 
qualifications of overseas people and offer an opinion on whether the 
qualifications of a person gained overseas are sufficiently analogous 
to those obtained in Australia in the computing field.  One of the 
litmus tests in that process is to ask the question would the person 
qualify for ACS membership? but the process itself does not lead to 
ACS Membership and an overseas person can separately seek admission to 
the ACS.

This power of assessment, that can determine whether a person should be 
allowed to immigrate, is given to an organisation that does not 
recognise a PostGraduate Diploma as being at at least the same level as 
a pass degree?
How can an organisation be qualified to offer an assessment of the 
standing of tertiary qualifications, when it fails to recognise that a 
PostGraduate Diploma is higher than a pass degree awarded by the same 
institution, in the same field?

universities are offered the opportunity to submit their courses for 
accreditation with ACS (its a no/low cost exercise from ACS' perspective 
but a lot of work for the University, just like becoming an ISO9000 
compliant company is).  Those courses that students do which are 
accredited make it a no-brainer to be elegible for membership of ACS. 
Perhaps you might ask the university if their course that your partner 
did was accredited, if not, why not?  Often the answer is that there 
arent sufficient IT offerings in it that are at the appropriate academic 
level in spite of it being called the Grad-Dip-IT-something-or-other. 
This isnt an ACS problem but rather a course design problem.
This also doesnt mean that courses which arent accredited are ignored or 
invalidated from ACS's point of view just that its more problematic and 
less certain that students will meet the necessary criteria in doing 
non-accredited courses for professional membership  See 
http://www.acs.org.au/index.cfm?action=accreditation&temID=accUniversities 
for info about the Course Accreditation process and to see which 
university courses are accredited and at what level.
I have participated as an ACS accreditation panel member in the past and 
I have to say that the process of getting courses accredited is both 
rigorous and thorough whilst its my experience that its also a positive 
process that's often welcomed by Universities because it gives them the 
opportunity to benchmark their offerings against an external standard 
based on the profession's Core Body of Knowledge (CBOK) which then leads 
to a marketing advantage in the growing their slice of the Australian 
international student marketplace.
cheers

brenda

ps please stop thinking that ACS stops people migrating, they dont, they 
offer an assessment of the qualifications that people have from overseas 
institutions.  If a person doesnt get the skills qualification 
assessment, they might still migrate because its a decision that DIMA 
makes, they might also become international students in order to meet 
the criteria for skilled migration on completion of their studies in 
Australia.  Other professional bodies do the same for their profession 
see http://www.acacia-au.com/skills-assessment-authorities.php
pps I would imagine that your partner would be eligible for membership 
at the associate level at least and with the passage of time working in 
the industry full professional membership.  If you want to send me the 
CV I will forward it to the Manager Professional Standards for his view 
on eligibility.

--
Brenda Aynsley, FACS
Chairman ACS SA http://www.acs.org.au/
The ACS Computer Professional Educational Program impacts
on the Practising Computer Professional scheme. Visit
http://www.acs.org.au/cpprogram/cpp.htm to see how.
Mobile:+61(0) 412 662 988 || Skype: callto://baynsley
Phone:08 8357 8844  Fax:08 8272 7486 Nodephone:08 7127 0107
Oz Business Partners http://www.ozbusinesspartners.com/

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