The Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) initiative aims to build the capacity of early childhood educators by improving the quality and uptake of RPL assessments. The initiative will make it easier for experienced early childhood educators to obtain or upgrade their qualifications using new national RPL assessment tools for Certificate III, Diploma and Advanced Diploma in Children’s Services.
From March 2012 until June 2015, 2000 RPL Assessment Grants per year of up to $1125 will be available for rural and remote early childhood educators to contribute to out-of-pocket expenses such as travel, accommodation and meals associated with accessing an RPL assessment.
Types of Claims
There are two types of RPL Assessment Grant applications:
- Service claims
- Individual Claims
An application is for a ‘service claim’ where an early childhood service has arranged for an RPL assessor to travel to the service to conduct a RPL assessment on one or more staff. This will reduce down time for services while also minimising the barriers for educators wishing to obtain a qualification.
Each application is limited to five staff. Additional claims should be lodged if more staff wish to undertake an assessment.
An application is an ‘individual claim’ when an early childhood educator will be travelling to the RPL assessor for the assessment. Where more than one educator is travelling to an assessment then separate claims should be lodged for each educator.
The maximum grant payable is $1125 (for individual claims) or $1125 per eligible early childhood educator (for service claims). The specific RPL assessment fee and/or the cost of enrolling in the qualification are not covered by the RPL assessment grant.
Other Financial Assistance
Early childhood services and educators and services may be eligible to receive other financial assistance to assist with the cost of undertaking RPL. Information about a range of Commonwealth, State and Territory government funding to support early childhood educators gain qualifications will be available on this page in May 2012.
You should also check with your RTO, state or territory government about what assistance is available.
Which services are eligible to apply?
To be eligible to receive grant funding, the service that the early childhood educators are employed at must operate as a:
- Long Day Care
- Family Day Care
- Outside School Hours Care ( includes Before and After School Care and Vacation Care)
- Preschool
- Centre based, Budget Based Funded Services.
Additionally, the service must also be located in one of the eligible, rural and remote areas (i.e. inner and outer regional, remote and very remote areas of Australia) as defined in the RPL Assessment Grant guidelines.
Courses Included
The RPL initiative focuses on the following qualifications:
- CHC30708 Certificate III in Children’s Services
- CHC50908 Diploma of Children’s Services (Early childhood education and care)
- CHC60208 Advanced Diploma in Children’s Services.
Assessment Contacts
To be eligible to receive an RPL Assessment Grant, early childhood services and educators must ensure that the RPL assessments are conducted by a DEEWR Registered RPL assessor using the new national RPL assessment tools.
When making initial contact with a DEEWR registered RPL assessor you should discuss how many times you may be required to meet with the assessor to complete the RPL assessment process. The number of contacts should be recorded in your RPL grant application form. You can include any additional assessment contacts on the RPL Assessment Attendance form which needs to be completed after each RPL assessment contact.
A list of registered assessors is available on the Recognition of Prior Learning – Registered Assessors page.
Estimating Expenses
When completing your RPL assessment grant application form you will need to provide an estimate for the out of pocket expenses associated with accessing RPL assessments. The grant can only be used to contribute to expenses such as accommodation, travel and meals. It does not include any specific RPL assessment fee or course costs. The RPL Assessment Grant guidelines provide full details of which expenses can be claimed.
Where you anticipate requiring multiple assessment contacts, you need to provide an estimate for the out of pocket expenses for all contacts. A simply way of doing this is to estimate the cost of the first assessment contact then multiply it by the total number of expected contacts.
Claiming the RPL grant payment
In order to receive your RPL assessment grant payment you will need to provide the receipts for your expenses and a fully completed RPL Assessment Attendance form, signed by the registered RPL Assessor. This will confirm the assessment contact was completed. If additional assessment contacts are required please record this on the RPL Assessment Attendance form.
If you are unable to provide a receipt for any of the expenses you will need to provide a statutory declaration, containing details of the expense, including an explanation of what and how much the expenses were.
The copy of the completed RPL Assessment Attendance form and receipts can be emailed, faxed or posted to the department within 60 days of the assessment contact. Your grant payment will be processed within 15 working days then paid to your early childhood service. If the claim was an individual claim, the early childhood service must pass on the grant payment to the educator to cover their out of pocket expenses.
Where multiple assessment contacts are required you are able to claim following each contact. Payments will continue to be made up to the maximum of $1125 per educator.
Examples of RPL Assessment grant applications
Operator and Service Details
When completing the RPL grant application form, the details of their early childhood service must be included.
- For services, such as long day care, outside school hours care and family day care, this information will need to include both the operator and service details as registered in the CCMS system.
- For preschool and centre-based BBF services, the operator refers to the legal entity (company, business, etc) authorised to accept funding from the government. The operator’s name is normally appears on all official documents and legal papers and may be different from the operator's trading name. Where the operator name and service name are the same then the information should be recorded in both sections of the application form.
Further information
If you have further questions, please send an email to ECECWorkforceInitiatives@deewr.gov.au.