Student Entry Procedure

Student Entry and Academic Suitability Procedure

Prior to accepting the enrolment of any student, ACBC will seek to verify the authenticity of the information provided by the student.

There are specific criteria students must meet to be eligible for a loan through VET Student Loans (VSL). Students must have been assessed as academically suited to undertake the eligible course and their FEE-HELP balance must be greater than zero.

Determining Citizenship and Residency Status

For the purposes of VSL, ACBC requires applicant students to provide the following information:

Information about the student’s identity and date of birth. This includes Australian Citizenship*, a current Australian Passport, a valid Australian Driver’s Licence, evidence of a permanent humanitarian visa if applicable.

To be eligible for a VET Student Loan, students must be either be:

  • an Australian citizen; or
  • hold a permanent humanitarian visa and usually reside in Australia; or
  • a New Zealand citizen who holds a Special Category visa and meet certain qualifying

* Australian citizenship

An Australian Passport is suitable evidence of Australian citizenship. If the applicant does not have an Australian Passport, the evidence required to demonstrate that an applicant is an Australian citizen may differ depending on whether the applicant was:

  • born in Australia before 20 August 1986
  • born in Australia on or after 20 August 1986

Applicants born in Australia before 20 August 1986

If applicants do not have an Australian Passport, they will need to provide their full birth certificate issued by an Australian Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages (RBDM).

An exception to this is where the applicant’s parents were in Australia as diplomats or consular officers at the time of the applicant’s birth. In these circumstances, the applicant will need to provide a citizenship certificate as evidence that they are an Australian citizen.

Applicant was born in Australia on or after 20 August 1986 and one of their parents was an Australian citizen at the time of their birth

  • If applicants do not have an Australian Passport, and where one (or both) of the applicant’s parents was an Australian citizen at the time of their birth, the applicant should provide their full birth certificate issued by an Australian
  • If the applicant’s full birth certificate shows that at least one of their parents was born in Australia, and that parent was born before 20 August 1986, this is sufficient evidence to prove the student’s Australian citizenship. If neither parent was born in Australia, the applicant can provide a parent’s Australian Citizenship certificate to prove at least one of their parents was a citizen at the time of their birth, to meet this requirement.
  • If their parent was born in Australia on or after 20 August 1986, the parent’s full birth certificate issued by an Australian RBDM, or the parent’s citizenship certificate, is still required.
  • If the applicant cannot provide this they should apply for their own evidence of Australian citizenship by lodging Form 119 Application for evidence of Australian citizenship with certified copies of the required documents and the application fee with Home

Applicant was born in Australia on or after 20 August 1986 and one of their parents was a permanent resident of Australia at the time of their birth

Applicants in these circumstances without a current Australian Passport must provide their Australian citizenship certificate.

Applicants born in Australia on or after 20 August 1986 and neither parent was an Australian citizen or an Australian permanent resident and they spent the first 10 years of their life in Australia

Applicants in these circumstances without a current Australian Passport must provide their Australian citizenship certificate.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander applicants not registered at birth by the relevant State/Territory authority

Applicants in these circumstances without a current Australian Passport may submit a Statutory Declaration as provided on the department’s Information for VET Student Loans Approved Providers page under ‘Forms’.

Note: the Statutory Declaration has been pre-populated, and must only be used by applicants to whom these circumstances apply. The Statutory Declaration must be witnessed by a person included in the List of Occupations or the List of Persons provided in the template on the department’s website mentioned above.

Statutory declarations are not acceptable forms of proof of Australian citizenship for any applicants other than Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islanders whose birth was not registered by the relevant State/Territory authority.

Applicants born overseas and acquired Australian citizenship by application

Applicants will need to provide one of the following documents as evidence of their Australian citizenship:

  • an Australian passport
  • an Australian citizenship certificate
  • a Citizenship by Descent extract

New Zealand citizens

A New Zealand citizen is eligible if they hold a Special Category visa and:

  • has usually been resident in Australia for at least 10 years; and
  • was a dependent child aged under 18 years of age when he or she first was usually resident in Australia and
  • has been in Australia for periods totalling eight years during the previous 10 years and
  • has been in Australian for periods totalling 18 months during the previous two years [Act s 11)].

Most New Zealand citizens who arrive in Australia are the holders of a temporary visa called a Special Category visa (SCV). This is not a permanent visa but allows its holder to visit, live and work in Australia indefinitely.

Applicants must satisfy ACBC that they meet the eligibility criteria as a New Zealand SCV holder.

What constitutes a New Zealand SCV holder?

New Zealand citizens who arrive in Australia using a New Zealand passport and, in the absence of a valid Australian visa, automatically receive a SCV provided they meet certain security, character and health requirements. There are no prior forms, fees, or applications required for this. They can then stay and work in Australia indefinitely. The SCV is a temporary visa that remains in place for as long as they remain in Australia, but expires as soon as the New Zealand citizen leaves Australia. Applicants will be required to provide evidence that they began living in Australia as a child at least 10 years before applying for the loan.

Unique Student Identifier (USI)

As part of the enrolment process, ACBC staff shall collect details of students USI and/or facilitate the creation and recording of the USI. This process addresses in general the requirements of RTO Standard 3.6.

Academic suitability and Entry Procedure

Evidence of completion of Year 12 of the NSW Higher School Certificate (HSC) or equivalent Student must provide evidence of completion of Year 12 of the NSW Higher School Certificate or its equivalent in other states within Australia. If the student has not completed Year 12, evidence of competency in the Core Skills Profile for Adults (CSPA)LLN assessment test must be demonstrated.

As a condition of being an approved VET Student Loans provider, ACBC must detail the Student Entry Procedure for course applicants seeking to access a VET Student Loan. The Student Entry Procedure includes a procedure that specifies that a student is academically suited to undertake a particular VSL approved course.

All students seeking to access a VET Student Loan for study at ACBC are required to:

1.       Participate in an interview with a Careers Advisor

When making an enquiry to ACBC, applicants are required to participate in an interview with a Careers Advisor at an ACBC campus. During this interview, the Careers Advisor will discuss their interests, career goals, academic achievements and work experiences. At the interview, applicants will be asked to provide details of their academic achievements to ensure that they are academically suited to a course.

Under VET Student Loan requirements, an applicant is academically suited to a course when:

  1. ACBC obtains a copy of a Senior Secondary Certificate of Education that has been awarded to the student by an agency or authority of a State or Territory for the student’s completion of year 12 (Certificate of Completion of Year 12 from school);

or

  1. both:
    1. the student is assessed as displaying competence at or above Exit Level 3 in the Australian Core Skills Framework in both reading and numeracy using an assessment tool approved under section 82; and
    2. ACBC reasonably believes that the student displays that competence;

or

  1. both:
    1. ACBC provider obtains a copy of a certificate (however described) that a qualification at level 4 or above in the Australian Qualifications Framework has been awarded to the student; and
    2. the course for the qualification was delivered in

What this means:

If students have completed year 12, they are required to show their Certificate of Completion to the Careers Advisor. They will still be required to complete an ACBC ‘Language Literacy and Numeracy test’ (LLN) prior to final enrolment to determine if they require any extra support during their study. This is a written test that has been developed based on requirement of the ACSF at level 3. This test takes up to 40 minutes to complete. The results are confidential. The test must be completed on site at ACBC.

If students have NOT completed year 12, they are required to complete the online CSPA test prescribed by VET Student Loans prior to final enrolment. This is an online test in two stages that takes up to an hour. The test must be completed on site at ACBC.

Assessment Results

When the student has completed the test, the Careers Advisor will log into the CSPA system and retrieve their result, and the results of the testing will be reported to the student immediately and a copy of the test results will be provided to the student. The results are confidential.

Results are to be reported to the Secretary in the form, manner and by the time requested by the Secretary.

Language, Literacy and Numeracy (LLN) assessment tool approved by the Department of Education and training

 The approved LLN tool used by ACBC is the Core Skills Profile for Adults (CSPA), published by the Australian Council for Educational Research Limited (ACER) in July 2013.

The CSPA is a set of secure online assessments matched to the latest Australian Core Skills Framework (ACSF). It provides an efficient, valid and reliable method for assessing the stages of development of adult learners, from young school leavers to adults who are studying, working or returning to training and study.

Assessing across the five performance levels of the ACSF in reading, numeracy and writing, the CSPA offers four components:

Interpreting the results of the CSPA test:

The CSPA will provide one of two results, competent or not yet competent:

  • If the result shows that the student is competent at the set level [Exit Level 3] in the Australian Core Skills Framework (ACSF) – the Careers Advisor can offer the student a position in a course with access to a VET Student The ACER LLN test requires student to achieve a score of 111 for both reading and numeracy to be competent.
  • If the result shows that the student is not yet competent at the set level, they will not be able to access a VET Student Loan for a course at ACBC. The student will be informed of the results at the end of the test and provided a copy of their test results
  • The results of the student’s competence in reading and numeracy are uploaded on the student’s portfolio in the Student management System, aXcelerate and are available to be immediately reported to the Secretary in the form, manner and by the time requested by the

LLN Assessment re-sits

Where a student is considered ‘borderline’ (see below, Careers Advisors shall book the candidate for a re-sit. If the candidate does not achieve the 111 score benchmark for both reading and numeracy in the second test, the following will:

ACSF Level

(Working At)

 CSPA

Reading

 CSPA

Numeracy

 ACBC Comment
No score returned 0-29.99 0-29.99 Not Eligible – Re-sit after 3 months
Level 1 30-79.99 30-80.99 Not Eligible – Re-sit after 3 months
Level 2 80-95.99 81-95.99 Not Eligible – Re-sit after 2 weeks
Level 3 96-110.99 96-110.99 Borderline – Offer re-sit
Level 4 111-137.99 111-129.99 Eligible
Level 5 138-162 130-162 Eligible

The ACBC Careers Advisor may explore the option of the student completing some foundation studies elsewhere to increase reading and numeracy skills to the level required prior to studying for a Diploma or Advanced Diploma.

ACBC will retain the student’s assessment undertaken as well as the results for 5 years and must provide these if requested by the Secretary or delegate.

ACBC will conduct the LLN process with honesty and integrity.

Applying for a VET Student Loan

To apply for a VET Student Loan you must complete the Request for a VSL electronic Commonwealth Assistance Form (eCAF) by the census day.

You will receive an email from the department allowing you to sign into the eCAF system. Once you sign-in, you must verify the pre-populated information and complete the mandatory fields. You must wait at least two full business days after you have enrolled in your course before submitting the eCAF.

The eCAF must be submitted on or before the first census day for which you would like the loan to apply. Once the eCAF is submitted, you will receive an email confirming loan approval and providing you with a copy of the completed form. This should be kept as a record.

Students Under 18 years Old

If you are under years 18 old, you must:

  • have a parental consent form signed by a responsible parent and provide the signed parental consent form prior to submitting enrolment information into the eCAF system

or

  • you must have evidence you have received youth allowance on the basis that you are independent within the meaning of Part 2.11 of the Social Security Act 1991. The evidence must be in the form of your Centrelink Income Statement noting this

Unique Student Identifier (USI)

As part of the enrolment process, ACBC staff shall collect details of students USI and/or facilitate the creation and recording of the USI. This process addresses in general the requirements of RTO Standard 3.6.

Tax File Number

Applicants must provide ACBC with their Tax file Number) (TFN) to be eligible for a VET Student Loan. If you do not have a tax file number but have applied for one, you must provide a certificate from the Commissioner stating that you have applied for a tax file number.

For information on how to obtain a Tax File Number, visit: https://www.ato.gov.au/individuals/tax-file-number/apply-for-a-tfn/