Recognition of prior learning (RPL) is an assessment only pathway which gives you the opportunity to showcase your knowledge and skills gathered throughout your life and workplace experiences and match them to meet the learning program requirements. Providing evidence of your prior experiences can help reduce the amount of time required to complete your learning program. After all, why would you need to complete formal assessments when you can already demonstrate evidence of meeting these course requirements through your real-world experiences? If you enrol into any of our nationally recognised courses, you can apply for RPL!
If you would like to apply for RPL, it’s important to be aware of how our RPL systems operate. When you enrol into one of our nationally recognised courses, you will notice that each course has different units of competency (e.g., BSBADM405 Organise meetings is a unit of competency). Embedded within each unit of competency is predetermined unit criteria (or competency standards) which are standardised across Australia. You can visit the National Register for VET HERE, where you can explore each unit of competency in full detail.
By applying for RPL, the evidence you submit needs to align to these competency standards. For example, it’s one thing to send through evidence of your meeting minutes, but this alone would not meet the other nationally recognised competency standards embedded within BSBADM405 Organise meetings. We would also need evidence of how you prepared notices, took meeting notes, etc. because there are competency standards within BSBADM405 Organise meetings which require this as evidence to meet the nationally recognised criteria.
To make the most of your RPL application, you can review the RPL Application Kit designed for the course you are interested in. You can receive one by requesting an information pack. The RPL Application Kit provides more detailed information on your potential RPL application, including suggestions for different sources of evidence you can submit! Your RPL application should also be organised and clearly labelled towards the relevant unit/s of competency.
One of our requirements when assessing your RPL application is to review and evaluate your evidence per the rules of evidence.
For example, the evidence must be:
The evidence that you submit can be direct or supplementary. Below are some examples of both types of evidence.
Direct evidence – evidence of your work. This is the most reliable form of evidence, such as:
Supplementary evidence – evidence of your skills and knowledge demonstrated by alternative means which can help verify your direct evidence, such as:
It is important to remember that RPL is about how a qualified RPL assessor can match your evidence towards the nationally recognised competency standards, and how the evidence can be verified. It’s like putting together pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and a jigsaw puzzle is not complete when a few pieces are missing! The qualified RPL assessor will keep in contact with you if they notice that some parts are missing and will guide you to finding these remaining pieces, whether it be via submitting additional evidence or completing individualised gap training exercises.
Credit transfer is a recognition process based on previous formal learning you may have accomplished in another learning program from a different (or even same) training provider. If you have completed a unit of competency in full once before, there is no need to do it all over again.
You are welcome to apply for credit transfer by submitting certified copies of your record of results or statement of attainment that you may have completed with another Registered Training Organisation (RTO). As part of our procedures, First Choice College will verify the authenticity of your transcript with the issuing RTO. Once we the verification checks have been conducted, your trainer will process your credit transfers following the packaging rules of the qualification. Units of competency which are not equivalent to the current units of competency will require additional evidence to be submitted, usually through the form of individualised gap training assessments.
Your enrolment application fee covers your potential RPL and/or credit transfer application with First Choice College. All RPL and credit transfer processes, such as verifying documents and organising gap training materials are also covered in your enrolment application fee.
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