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Recognition of Prior Learning Made Easy
This article was featured by Reinvent Your Career and can be accessed here
Do you have skills and knowledge gained through career experience, prior training or study and even voluntary work, but you don't have the piece of paper to prove it? Then Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) could put you on the fast track to obtaining a Nationally Recognised Australian Qualification without having to complete additional classroom study.
RPL Explained
RPL is a simple no stress process of assessing how your skills and experience match Units of Competency within the Australian Training Packages for various industries. Evidence is submitted in the form of scanned documents that are sent via our secure encrypted file transfer system and the whole process is conducted using online services and phone calls. Even if your industry experience was gained working overseas, this is still relevant to an Australian RPL application.
Read more about RPL
Benefits of RPL
Get Qualified Australia aim to assist Applicants to develop their current ‘employability skills’. This is one of the key elements of the RPL process and a focus of Get Qualified Australia is ensuring that individual industry expertise formalised. RPL speeds up the process of achieving Qualifications. You don’t have to do further study to prove your experience and the Qualifications are issued quickly once the RPL process is completed.
By listing a Nationally Recognised Qualification on your Resume / CV, it will show that you have professional credentials to match your career and work history. This will increase your chance of promotions and increases the standard of your skills when you are applying for a new jobs or seeking internal promotions.
Evidence Required
An extensive range of evidence can be used to verify and assess competency of applicants. This includes contracts of employment & job descriptions, details of training & inductions, performance reviews and appraisals, references from current and past employers, work samples and examples of work you complete ‘on the job’.
Work examples can be presented as documents such as checklists, schedules, reports, emails and correspondence or notes. But you can also use photos, videos and recordings to show yourself working on the job. This is particularly useful for applicants using RPL for to complete qualifications for ‘hands on’ jobs such as Hospitality and Trades.
Read more about RPL Evidence
Qualifications Available
Get Qualified Australia offers RPL options for over 400 qualifications across an extensive range of professional industries including Commercial Cookery & Bakery, Tourism & Hospitality, Business & Management, Finance, Marketing, Human Resources, Education & Training, Project Management, Child Care & Age, Transport and Logistics, Trades and many more.
Tertiary Qualifications ranging from Certificate II to Advanced Diploma level can be issued using the RPL assessment process. Once all your evidence has been sent to GQ Australia and is checked to make sure you are competent, the Qualification Certificate will be issued within 2 to 4 weeks of completion.
If you currently hold an Advanced Diploma and have extensive Department Manager or Executive level industry experience, you can also use established ‘pathways’ to complete Higher Education Qualifications at University level using the RPL process. You can firstly obtain a Vocational Graduate Certificate or Diploma using RPL, then you can apply for Credit Transfer and exemptions towards Australian MBA programs.
Get Qualified Australia also have partnerships with University Enrolment Consultants that can assist you with finding the right pathway to achieving Higher Education Qualifications.
The RPL process
Professional Industry Skills Assessors from Get Qualified Australia can complete a FREE evaluation of your Resume / CV and suggest suitable qualifications matching your skills and experience. All you need to do is contact the GQ head Office first and chat to one of the friendly helpful staff so they can give you more information on the RPL process.
You can be assured that the service you will receive is the highest standard. Get Qualified Australia assessors all hold Australian Training Qualifications and have worked at Executive Management level in their industries and fields of expertise. They have also worked as trainers and assessors in industry and also at colleges in the lecturing environment. Because of this experience, they can provide valuable recommendations, advice and guidance to help you achieve a Qualification.
When you complete RPL with Get Qualified Australia, you will be provided with detailed information on how to prepare and submit evidence to support the RPL application. Your assessor will give you support and guidance throughout the RPL process and assessors are available to talk with you at any time to answer any questions that you might have.
Read more about the RPL Process
Use Your Current Qualifications
If you already have qualifications attained from previous study, you can use this as evidence to support your Application. If your qualifications were issued by an Australian RTO, the Academic Transcript which provides a full listing of all the Units of Competency that were successfully completed can be reviewed by RPL Assessors. If any of the Units are the same is those included in the qualification that you are seeking you will be given Credit Transfers and will not need to complete these Unit. This ensures that you only have to provide evidence for a reduced number of Units to complete the Qualification successfully.
International Qualifications and Experience
If you have International Qualifications they can be used for RPL, but this Credit Transfer process cannot be completed unless you have had the Qualifications verified by Australian Education International. This is an Australian Government organization that can assess overseas qualifications in higher education, post-secondary technical and vocational studies and match them to the Australian equivalent.
Any industry experience that you have gained outside of Australia is still relevant for an RPL Application. However, references need to be written on company letterhead, in English or translated, plus verified by a Justice of the Peace. Referee contact details are also essential for conducting reference checks to verify your skills and experience. They will need to be fluent in English so that they can be contacted via email or phone.
Australian Education International can assist you with assessment of overseas qualifications
Getting Started with RPL
For all enquiries please contact Get Qualified Australia on 1300 88 43 66 and talk with one of our Industry Skills Assessors. They will ask you to send a copy of your current resume / CV for review and can provide detailed information on RPL.
About Get Qualified Australia
Get Qualified Australia offers a range of specialised Vocational Education and Training services for local, national and international clients from our Head Office which is based in Sydney, Australia. Our key focus is RPL Assessment, but we offer a wide range of specially customised training and assessment solutions for individuals and business.
Get Qualified have Partnership Agreements with numerous Registered Training Organisations (RTO’s) throughout Australia in order to be able to have Nationally Recognised Qualifications issued to our Applicants. Using these alliances, we have access to over 400 Qualifications across a range of industries and fields of expertise.
We utilise specialised systems that have been developed to conform with requirements of the Australian Qualifications Training Framework, in consultation with RTO’s and Industry Skills Councils guidelines, so that the requirements and demands of key industry organisations and stakeholders have been met.
Executives of Get Qualified attend major industry conferences, seminars, workshops and are called upon to give presentations on a regular basis. This ensures that our standards for vocational education and training sets industry quality benchmarks and ensures that we remain at the forefront of trends and challenges that Australia’s major industries.
Get Qualified are continually seeking innovative, advanced and progressive methods to improve client and industry services.
About the Author, David Lang
David Lang has over 20 years management experience in Australian and internationally. He specialises in development of Quality Assurance Systems, Learning & Development Strategies for business and Online Marketing & Social Media Solutions.
David has been working with Get Qualified Australia since May 2012 and has established a number of innovative operational processes in order to increase efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability of the training and assessment services offered.
This includes development and integration of:
- operational systems for conformance with Standards for NVR Registered Training Organisations 2012
- new website design and marketing strategies including social media management
- client relations management systems
- interactive e-Learning portal integration
- secure encrypted online data transfer system service for confidential document and data transfer; and
- paperless administration system for partner RTO’s.
David Lang for Get Qualified on Twitter