About to submit IQA application. Any reason NOT to ask for Long Term Shortage Skill List assessment?

[Juniper]

Alright, I've gotten my husband's documents together and I'm ready to start the IQA process. My only remaining question is whether to get the Long Term Shortage Skill list thing assessed.

I realize that all computer science degrees will be referred to IPENZ if he wants to claim bonus points for LTSSL. I also realize that means filling out the horrendous KA02 form (I've checked and he can't get away with the simpler form, because our university isn't listed in the Washington Accord.) I'd like to avoid KA02 unless we absolutely have to claim those points. But we won't know one way or another for quite awhile, pending job search etc.

My question is - will the outcome of the IQA assessment be considered incomplete in some fashion if I ask for LTSSL assessment, but later find out that we don't need to claim LTSSL points? Since NZQA takes so long, I want to cover our bases - but I'm wary of complicating his results by even mentioning LTSSL at this point. Is there even any use in mentioning LTSSL to NZQA when I know all software engineers are ultimately referred to IPENZ?

What I'm hoping is that the result would basically be, "yes it's level 7 and you can claim points for your qualification, but if you want to claim more points for LTSSL, then you can follow up with IPENZ."

[JandM]

How many points do you think he has WITHOUT LTSSL?

[Juniper]

If he gets a job offer, he won't need LTSSL, and if he doesn't have a job offer, we're short (unless August policy changes remedy that...although with the new salary requirements, it's reasonable to assume salary is based on a job offer rather than work history).

The only reason I'm interested in LTSSL at all now is because SMC takes so long to process, and if Essential Skills no longer supports partner/children visas after August, I'm thinking Work to Residence might be a decent interim solution while SMC is processing. I'm hoping that the policy changes won't touch WTR since it wasn't specifically mentioned in the news:
https://www.immigration.govt.nz/new-...list-work-visa

[JandM]

For IQA, NZQA looks at the degree transcript - the subject matter studied, for how long, to what depth - and on that basis declares the NZ Level of the foreign qualification, and also, if they are able to give a specific outcome, any NZ qualification to which is comparable. It is the last part that they are not now allowed to do for an engineering degree of any sort, so they are likely to come up with a generic outcome, for instance, 'A degree at Level 7.'

So the answer to your last question is yes.

[Juniper]

Ok. So what I'm hearing is that there is no point in muddying the waters with LTSSL when dealing with NZQA if your degree has anything to do with engineering, and if I later want to claim LTSSL points, I can just contact IPENZ and deal with it then :-)

[JandM]