Skill Path's 2025 year in review

2025 was Skill Path's founding year. We started to build something new from the ground up: an organisation driven to create a better future for refugees, and a skilled future for Australia.

In practice that means we are developing pathways and programs that support refugees to access higher education, training, and professional recognition in fields that we desperately need in Australia. Activating skills we need to lift productivity and grow our economy to benefit all.

Australia has an ageing population and widening skills gaps. The rise in anti-immigrant sentiment is not just troubling, it is self-defeating.

What we need is not fewer newcomers but smarter systems for welcoming them: programs that recognise potential and remove barriers to contribution.

In 2025, we focussed on building those systems:

• Twenty refugee students were selected from nearly 2,000 applications for the first cohort of the Refugee Student Settlement Pathway, now enrolled at eight universities across five states and territories on permanent humanitarian visas.

• We secured commitment from the Australian Government to expand the pilot in 2026.

• One hundred volunteers joined Student Welcome Groups on campus.

• We launched Australia's first refugee student loan program with Spark Finance.

• We began designing a new vocational pathway for refugees entering the electrical trade.

Each milestone has been a step towards scale and sustainability.

Thank you to all the partners, donors, volunteers and other supporters who have supported Skill Path to get off the ground.

Read the full 2025 Impact Report