JOY (Migration)

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal considered the case of an applicant seeking a Subclass 485 (Temporary Graduate) visa in the Graduate Work stream. The applicant's eligibility for this visa depended on satisfying the 'Australian study requirement' and ensuring that any qualifications used to meet this requirement were closely related to their nominated skilled occupation. The applicant had nominated the occupation of Developer Programmer.

The Tribunal was required to determine whether the applicant met the criteria for the Subclass 485 visa, specifically whether they had satisfied the Australian study requirement within the six months preceding their visa application and whether their qualifications were closely related to their nominated occupation. The applicant had completed a Bachelor of Information Technology, which was found to be closely related to Developer Programmer, but this qualification was not completed within the relevant six-month period. Therefore, the applicant relied on a Master of Business Administration (MBA) to satisfy the Australian study requirement.

The Tribunal reasoned that while the applicant claimed to have undertaken a specialisation in Information Technology for their MBA and provided an academic transcript showing some IT-related subjects, the evidence was insufficient to establish this. Although a brochure indicated an Information and Technology specialisation was previously available for the MBA, the Tribunal found that the applicant had not sufficiently demonstrated that their specific MBA qualification met this specialisation or that the units completed were sufficiently IT-focused to be considered closely related to the nominated occupation of Developer Programmer. The Tribunal noted that only two of the four exempted subjects had identifiable IT-related names, with the others being 'unspecified elective'.

Consequently, the Tribunal concluded that the applicant did not satisfy the criteria for the grant of a Subclass 485 visa. The decision under review, which was not to grant the visa, was affirmed.