Recognition of prior learning

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Risk overview

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, 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.

The issuing of qualifications through RPL without appropriate assessment is an enduring and growing risk in the VET sector. Unethical RTOs, some operating within sophisticated networks, are functioning as ‘RPL mills’, using high-volume, low-quality assessment models to target mandatory qualifications for government funded job roles, areas of skills shortages and migration pathways.

These bad-faith operators distort the VET market by undermining the value of genuine RPL and displacing quality RTOs from the market. Fraudulent RPL qualifications pose a serious threat to the integrity of Australia’s VET and migration systems, compromises student work readiness, and introduces risk into workplace settings.

Key points from research

• Third-party RPL brokers play a facilitatory role in the issuing of non-genuine RPL qualifications. This presents jurisdictional challenges as brokers are not regulated.
• Networks of unethical operators, comprising primarily of RPL brokers, migration agents, labour hire organisations and registered training organisations (RTOs), are colluding to aggressively market RPL. Their tactics mislead students by promoting qualifications as easily obtainable without study or genuine assessment.
• Some RTOs operate high-volume, low-quality assessment business models, issuing VET qualifications through RPL to individuals without adequately verifying their competencies.
• The use of fraudulent qualifications poses significant risks to community safety, particularly in sectors most susceptible to exploitation by unethical operators, such as aged care, individual support, childcare, security and trade occupations.
• Providers are almost certainly under-reporting RPL in Total VET Activity (TVA) data to avoid regulatory scrutiny, attract higher levels of VET funding, and for other exploitation purposes.

Information on RPL for students.

RPL advice under the 2025 Standards

The 2025 Standards came into full regulatory effect on 1 July 2025, and we have published the Practice Guide – Recognition of Prior Learning and Credit Transfer.  

The Practice Guide sets out obligations for providers in relation to RPL 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 considering ASQA’s ongoing and heightened regulatory focus on RPL. We continue to monitor provider compliance, targeting inadequate assessment practices, false or misleading marketing of RPL, gap training unavailability and the issuance of fraudulent qualifications. We have 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.

For more information on the 2025 Standards, including access to the full suite of Practice Guides, visit our 2025 Standards for RTOs webpage. You can also learn more about the 2025 Standards on the DEWR website.