What is Trade Recognition Australia (TRA) Skill Assessment?
Trade Recognition Australia (TRA) is the main governing body that evaluates if your educational qualifications and work experience is at professional level for trade occupations in Australia. It specializes in assessing people with trade skills. It includes welders, electricians, chefs, plumbers, and more. Certification by TRA also increases your points in their immigration system.
It checks if your formal education and vocational experience is up to the Australian industry standards. Your education and work experience needs to be closely related to your nominated occupation for the visa type you are applying. The Skilled Occupation List (SOL) includes over 160 occupations in the trade fields. These are mostly jobs which are in shortage in the local labor market. After fulfilling all its criteria, it awards a certificate of qualification or a license which can then be used to migrate to Australia.
Eligibility
Want to check if you are eligible to qualify in TRA Migration Skills Assessment? You need to prove the following information by procuring documentary evidence:
- You must be from a country listed by the TRA.
- You must be in the occupation covered by their MSA program.
- You must possess qualifications comparable to the Australian qualification for the nominated occupation.
- You must have completed three years of full time paid or equivalent part time employment in your nominated occupation at the skill level required.
- You must have paid a fee of $1000.
Skill Assessment Programs
Here are the assessment programs of TRA:
Job Ready Program
It is an employment based skill assessment for international students of a nominated country. They must have Australian qualifications. It offers them the opportunity for growth in the nominated occupation, work experience in Australian work settings, and an outcome to provide to the Department of Home Affairs while applying for a skilled migration permanent residency visa.
TSS Skills Assessment Program
TSS Skills Assessments are for those applicants of Temporary Skills Shortage (TSS) visa who hold the passport of a nominated country and are involved in nominated occupation. It assesses if you have the necessary skills and experience to work professionally in Australia. It checks your qualifications and skills to determine if they are of the Australian standards. They recruit people, who can contribute to their economy, because they face shortages in their local labor market in those occupations.
Offshore Skill Assessment Program
Those candidates, who are applying for a skilled migration visa and are from a nominated country and in a nominated occupation, fall under this category. It is applicable to air conditioning or refrigeration mechanics, plumbers, electricians and so on. It assesses the skills and experience gained overseas by the applicants for recognition of their skills and for the purpose of migration. The visa type they are seeking for is skilled migration permanent residency visa.
TRA Migration Skill Assessment
By applying for Migration Skill Assessment by TRA, the applicant can prove that the qualifications, skills, and experience he/she is bringing to Australia with him/her is equivalent to the skills required to function professionally in the Australian workplace. TRA recognizes their qualifications and skills of being of the Australian standards. In this way, with Migration Skill Assessment, you can move forward in your career in Australia too in the field you had been engaged in your home country.
Migration Points Advice
Australia has a point based immigration system, which means that every immigrant is judged on the points they receive before they get entry into the country. For instance, if you are between the age of 25 to 33, you score 30 points, and if you are proficient in English you receive 10 points. In this way, they analyze all those who apply for visas. In this way, they supply the necessary manpower to their growing economy. You require a total of 65 points to be eligible for migration to Australia. Migration Points Advice evaluates where the applicant stands in their points-based system.
Skills Assessment Opportunities for Migrants Pilot
Those migrants who are living in Australia because of their eligible partner, family, humanitarian or refugee visas and have never gone through skills assessment fall under Skills Assessment Opportunities for Migrants Pilot program. They have adequate qualifications, skills and experience in the nominated occupation but have not been recognized by any of the Skills Assessment Programs. They can be granted quick skills assessments and become eligible for occupations in their field of work. The recognition from Skills Assessment Opportunities for Migrants Pilot proves that the applicant is skilled enough to work in professional settings in Australia.
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Pre Migration Assessment
There are groups that require pre-migration assessment. In other words, there are groups of people, whose vocational skills need to be assessed by the concerned authority before they migrate to Australia. They fall under mainly two groups:
- Applicants under GSM (General Skilled Migration) program
- Applicants under Employer Sponsored Migration program (this could be waived under certain circumstances)
Migrants from humanitarian, working holiday makers, and family streams are not required to have any pre-migration assessment. The main pre-migration assessing body is Trade Recognition Australia (TRA), while the other pre-migration assessing body is Vocational Education Training and Assessment Services (VETASSES) for occupations that do not fall under the traditional trade definition.
Post Migration Recognition
A larger range of groups may need to obtain post-migration recognition of trade qualifications. They are:
- Immigrants, under the GSM program, who require professional registration or licensing
- Those who need to get their skills assessed such as family members of the migrants under secondary GSM program applicants
- Those who have entered Australia under humanitarian grounds
- Temporary residents who want to work in Australia
- Australian citizens who have received qualifications from other countries
The type of occupation engaged in determines the nature of the assessment. In many occupations under VETASSESS, regulation is not required. It is completely the employer’s wish to demand documents required from the employees for the occupation in question. There are a number of occupations that do require registration and licensing while a number of them don’t. Licensing is done “for public health and safety reasons or to reflect internationally accepted standards of practice”. Registration and licensing is up to the state or territory to decide.