2024 Changes to Skills First
February 15, 2024
Taking into account RTO’s need for certainty, the Department has offered a Skills First contract of 2-years duration. The longer-duration
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Learn Local organisations are fast approaching their first reporting deadline for pre-accredited training. By now, your organisation is hopefully well under way with its 2020 pre-accredited program delivery. The contract means you receive payments on a periodical basis however bear in mind that specific reporting milestones must be adhered to. Your accurate data reporting will assist the ACFE Board in understanding and responding to community needs for pre-accredited training delivery, hence the strict and regular reporting requirements.
This article examines five basic statistical rules that are critical to the successful reporting of pre-accredited training activity to the Department via the Skills Victoria Training System (SVTS).
Ideally, you should have all local course codes set up in your student management system (SMS) prior to scheduling upcoming intakes and accepting enrolments. Unlike accredited units of competency from national training packages, which most systems can locate and import from www.training.gov.au, pre-accredited course codes must be manually created in your SMS. Most systems offer the option of creating and reporting Unit of Competency or Subject Enrolments only, this is the most common way of reporting pre-accredited enrolments to SVTS. In this case, the Program Code Identifier in the NAT00030, NAT00120 and NAT00130 files will be blank. The subject code length (up to 12 characters), contact hours, and field of education identifier are the three elements which are critical for the creation of a pre-accredited local code in your SMS. Also, don’t forget that the VET flag must be reported as “Yes”.
The AVETMISS information that must be collected and reported for a pre-accredited enrolment is exactly the same as the information related to an accredited enrolment. If your Learn Local is also a Registered Training Organisation, then you can use the same enrolment form across both types of programs. The only element that can be excluded from the pre-accredited data collection is the Unique Student Identifier (USI). This is only applicable to nationally recognised training and you should feel free to ignore any validation warnings that your SMS may give you against any pre-accredited enrolments missing a USI.
The Department approves the allocation of subsidised pre-accredited training by Local Governance Area (LGA). Simply, this means that the delivery of each pre-accredited course must be conducted within the boundaries of a specific LGA. Ensure that the Delivery Location Identifier reported for all pre-accredited enrolments in the NAT00120 file links to a suburb which falls under the approved LGA, as indicated in your Delivery Plan. For instance, when the delivery of a pre-accredited course has been approved in the City of Yarra, the reported Delivery Location Identifier must correspond to a suburb under that Local Council (Richmond, Fitzroy, Collingwood, etc.).
The “Funding Source Identifier – National” for pre-accredited enrolments in your NAT00120 file must always be reported as 11 – Commonwealth and state general purpose recurrent. The “Funding Source Identifier – State” associated with pre-accredited enrolments may vary, depending on the enrolment referral source or the initiative type. We have included all of the applicable codes in the table below:
| Funding Source State Code | Description |
| ACE | Standard enrolments in pre-accredited local programs |
| ACR | Learners referred by Skills First Reconnect Program providers |
| ACJ | Eligible asylum seekers referred by a Jobs Victorian Employment Network (JVEN) program provider. |
| ASE | Enrolments under the Asylum Seeker Language and Literacy Program |
| ASV | Enrolments under the Asylum Seeker VET Learning Plan |
Unlike enrolments under the Asylum Seeker VET Program, the Eligibility Exemption Indicator for asylum seekers’ pre-accredited enrolments must be reported as “N” (No – An eligibility exemption has not been granted).
Enrolments into pre-accredited local courses are non-assessable, so learners aren’t required to undertake an assessment. The “Outcome Identifier – National” for pre-accredited enrolments can only be one of the following:
Code 82 is applicable when the learner either hasn’t completed the program in a way that satisfies the requirements or has withdrawn after engaging in program activities. Your Learn Local Organisation should have a policy in place that clearly outlines the successful completion requirements linked to their pre-accredited training programs.
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