As the government defended its decision to deny foreign academics and tutors priority visa processing, the Go8 rejected the employer-sponsored scheme as inadequate in its present form.
The scheme - which the government is entrenching as the dominant route to permanent residency - requires employers to offer permanent employment and guarantee a minimum of three years in the position.
However, the Go8's Bernadine Caruana said many research positions were grant funded and the term of funding was often less than three years.
"Permanent residency boosts a person's ability to apply for competitive research council grants to continue to fund their research, so the short-term option is not a good one either," she told the HES.
"We understand the government aims to slash visa classes by 50 per cent, so a special visa class for researchers is unlikely."
Ms Caruana said rules governing the remaining visa types needed to be made more flexible.
Temporary residents should also be eligible for research grants, to ensure Australia is competitive in attracting the best young international researchers, she said. Complex visa requirements reduced Australia's ability to compete for the very limited number of top research scientists early in their careers.
Skills Australia said it recognised the problem but questioned whether independent migration would be appropriate.
Even where overseas lecturers had a research background in an area of demand, there was no assessing authority or criteria to assess their suitability, secretariat head Sue Beitz told the HES.作者: lwb1123 时间: 3-6-2010 11:55
slash visa classes，比slash visa quantity好