AHISA SUBMISSION

National Skills Commission

23 October 2020

Skills Priority List consultation

AHISA’s submission is a response to an invitation to contribute to the National Skills Commission’s consultations in developing the Skills Priority List.

The Skills Priority List guides which occupations sit within the Short-term Skilled Occupation List (STSOL) or Medium and Long-term Strategic Skills List (MLTSSL) for the purposes of temporary skilled migration. As such, the List has significant consequential impact on the available options of many independent schools to address recruitment challenges.

In its submission, AHISA presents evidence on recruitment challenges in independent schools as collected via a 2017 survey of members on overseas recruitment practices and a 2020 survey on staff recruitment, retention and turnover.

The submission highlights the disjunct between the recruitment experiences of independent schools and national occupation data used to develop the Skills Priority List, and recommends that the National Skills Commission investigates the possibility of adopting a more nuanced approach to determining skills shortages.

Skills Priority List consultation – National Skills Commission