Recognition of prior learning

Risk overview

Recognition of Prior Learning (or RPL) is a legitimate part of the VET sector and the Australian education system.  

Performed well, it recognises skills built from experience and provides a robust framework to ensure people can have their skills recognised.  

Individual competency-based assessment must be undertaken by qualified assessors including to identify training required to fill gaps in a person’s knowledge and skills to meet the requirements specified in a training package. ASQA has ongoing concerns about the inadequate RPL practices of some providers who exploit vulnerable students and compromise the integrity of qualifications.

Students who gain qualifications through RPL, yet lack the required competency or knowledge, compromise the confidence that students, industry, governments and the community employers and the community have in national qualifications. Inadequate assessment practices and business models that are cutting corners in issuing RPL allow unqualified persons entry into critical roles, which poses a risk to themselves and others in the workplace and adversely impacts community safety.  

Behaviours of concern include marketing and sales tactics that promote an easier path to qualification and outsourcing of RPL assessments to unregulated third parties. We are also concerned about potential collusion between providers and are looking into credit transfer practices between providers that are based on issuance of RPL.  

Key points from research

1. Some provider practices of unethical marketing of RPL services are impacting student expectations and damaging sector reputation. 
2. RPL may be exploited as a skilled migration pathway, with some third parties explicitly targeting RPL marketing toward international students.
3. Some providers who do not adequately assess RPL evidence for authenticity, completeness or currency against training package requirements are compromising the integrity of qualifications.
4. Providers that lack in-house or third-party gap training options to support RPL assessment are at increased risk of non-compliant assessments, resulting in students entering the workforce without essential skills.
5. Some licensing bodies report high rates of application rejection due to inadequate evidence to support RPL competency assessments in key areas.

Updated RPL advice under revised Standards

The revised Standards come into full regulatory effect on 1 July 2025, and ASQA has published a draft Practice Guide on Training and Assessment – Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) and Credit Transfer.  

The Practice Guide sets out obligations for providers in relation to RPL under the revised Standards and provides guidance on how providers may achieve compliance with these obligations – including examples of activities that may demonstrate compliance, risks to quality outcomes, and assurance questions providers may wish to consider in assessing their performance and readiness.  

Providers are encouraged to review their systems, policies and practices as they relate to RPL – to identify any gaps and implement plans to address these.  

This is particularly important in light of ASQA’s ongoing and heightened regulatory focus on RPL. ASQA continues to monitor provider compliance, targeting inadequate assessment practices, false or misleading marketing of RPL, gap training unavailability and the issuance of fraudulent qualifications. ASQA has and will continue to take action against providers with non-compliant assessment or RPL practices, including removing providers from the sector who are found to have fraudulently issued qualifications and taking regulatory action that may result in cancelling the qualifications issued.  

Unregistered third-party brokers and agents are often critical to the process and facilitate issuing non-genuine qualifications, purporting to deliver an RPL process. Brokers and agents often use hostile and unethical marketing practices in a market where there is high demand for quick qualifications. These practices are unacceptable and, in some cases, fraudulent.

Our regulatory response

In response, ASQA is working with other government agencies, state and territory governments, and regulators to help coordinate responses to the threat.  

In 2024, ASQA joined the Fraud Fusion Taskforce, a partnership between over 20 other government agencies. The Taskforce aims to work together to quickly detect, resolve and prevent fraud and serious organised crime across government programs.  

Reducing threats to the integrity of VET is a multi-year program. ASQA works to prevent, detect, deter and disrupt fraudulent behaviour in the VET sector which undermines and threatens the vast majority of providers who are committed and capable of delivering quality VET outcomes for students, industry and the community.  

For more information on the revised Standards, including access to the full suite of draft Practice Guides, visit our Revised Standards for RTOs webpage. You can also learn more about the revised Standards on the DEWR website.

Information on RPL for students.