If you chance upon this post, please do remember it's a migration process for Visa 189 (Skilled Independent Visa) that started in 2014, things probably have changed.
I was a teacher in Singapore so this might be more pertinent to fellow teachers looking to make the same trek over the ocean.
Do you need a migration agent? No, in all honesty, but if you're rich and hate paperwork, go for it.
Step ZERO: Take the points test
Step 1: IELTS (International English Language Testing System)
- Everything starts from IELTS
- If you are a teacher, you need to register for Academic and not General Training
- I booked the test from British Council, it cost $320
- There are 4 components - Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening
- As a teacher, you will need to score 7s for Reading and Writing and 8 for Speaking and Listening.
- Speaking is tested on a separate day from the other 3 components.
- My timeline was:
- Speaking on the 19th of Sept 2014
- Reading/Writing/Listening on the 20th of Sept 2014.
- Received results on the 4th of October.
- Roughly 2 weeks.
- If you wish to read some details of what the tests felt like: IELTS Speaking / IELTS Reading-Writing-Listening
- For practice, I used the mock tests on this website
Step 2: AITSL (Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership)
- This is for skills assessment - where they verify if your Singaporean qualifications are applicable in Australia.
- If you are in another occupation, you'll have to seek out the relevant assessing authorities - here
- As a teacher, this is what I did
- NIE transcipts and certs
- NUS/NTU transcripts and certs
- Statement of Employment from MOE
- Statement of Employment from each school you have taught in (you can get them to list down the number of hours you work per week)
- Get all the copies certified as true copies.
- You will receive 3 items
- Assessment for Migration certificate
- Skills Assessment certificate
- Skilled Employment claim
- My timeline was:
- Skills assessment sent on Oct 27
- Notification that assessment was completed on Dec 11
- AITSL registered mail received on Dec 26
- Roughly 64 days.
- Total time from start of the migration process, roughly 88 days.
Step 3: EOI (Expression of Interest)
- 13 step process where you enter all the information you've accumulated thus far.
- Its sole purpose is to let the Australian Immigration know that you're interested in migrating to Australia.
- You can update your EOI if there are changes.
- There are 2 invitation rounds each month
- You can check SkillSelect for the dates of the Invitation Rounds. (They like to fiddle with the url, so just click around for something that says Invitation Rounds)
- Some basic rules they employ:
- The highest ranked by points score are invited to apply first.
- Equal points cases will be separated by the time at which they reached their points score for the subclass.
- EOIs with earlier dates of effect are invited before later dates.
- My timeline was:
- EOI submitted via SkillSelect on 28th Dec
- SkillSelect invitation came in on 9th Jan, 2015. This is when you EOI status changes from 'submitted' to 'invited'
- Roughly 12 days (but this varies by case to case so don't panic)
- Total time from start of migration process, roughly 100 days.
- Important to note that upon receiving the invitation email, you now have 60 days to apply.
Step 4,5,6: Visa Application / Health Check / Police Clearance
- This is where you'll 'migrate' from SkillSelect account to the ImmiAccount
- You will be given a reference number
- There's a 17 step process of entering information into ImmiAccount
- You can enter nearly all the information except Evidence of Health and Evidence of Character
- I paid a total of AUD$7000 or so for my family. That's 2 adults and 2 children. The price has definitely gone up so do due diligence.
- Health: Entering your health data into ImmiAccount, generates a referal letter and a unique HAP ID which the clinic will use to upload your results to the portal.
- You'll be X-rayed and tested for HIV.
- Character:
- This if basically for the Singapore Police to certify that you haven't run afoul of any laws or committed any crimes.
- You cannot do anything about this till a case officer has been assigned to you. Received case officer Mar 19, 2015.
- From the time you receive the case office email for the police clearance, you'll have 28 days to respond.
- For more info on how to get the police clearance, read here.
- My timeline was:
- Submitted visa application, Jan 11
- Health checks done, end Jan.
- Case Officer assigned, 19 Mar
- Applied for Police clearance, 20 Mar (14 day wait to get results but you can notify your case officer that it's underway)
- Roughly 81 days
I started the whole process on the 19th of Sept 2014 and was granted the visa on 13 Apr, 2015.
Google tells me that that was 206 days.
Good luck with your journey!
