Newbery’s Audit Guide – Clause 3.3
What the clause requires:
3.3 AQF certification documentation is issued to a learner within 30 calendar days of the learner being assessed as meeting the requirements of the training product if the training program in which the learner is enrolled is complete, and providing all agreed fees the learner owes to the RTO have been paid.
What is this clause about:
This clause is about ensuring that your AQF certificates are issued within 30 days from the date the student is assessed as competent in their final unit of competency. This clause is quite easily audited. The auditor would have usually sampled a range of learner records during their audit of 1.8. They will utilise these records and may select others to simply check the date of the learner’s final assessment of competency against the date the learner was issued there AQF certificate. Keep in mind that there are 2 reasons why an RTO is not obliged to meet this requirement. The first is that the learner has not paid the RTO the fees for the course. The second reason is that the RTO has not been provided or able to verify the learner’s Unique Student Identifier. It is a civil offence for the RTO to issue an AQF certificate without first verifying the learner’s Unique Student Identifier. Most auditors will want to see some policy, procedure or workflow that demonstrates how the organisation meets this requirement. This procedure might put specific time frames around milestones required to be met before the certificate can be issued. An example of this is requiring assessment records to be returned to the office within a minimum timeframe or results being entered into the student management system again within a minimum timeframe. Ultimately the most valid form of evidence in relation to this clause is the outcome of issuing AQF certificates within the 30 calendar days.
You must be able to demonstrate that:
You issue all AQF certificates within 30 calendar days from the date the student is assessed as competent in their final unit of competency.
You have a process or procedure to quality assure this.
Evidence to prepare:
Learner records where evidence of assessment decisions and the date they were made are available.
Sample AQF certificates where the date issued can be compared with the last date the learner was assessed as competent in the enrolled course
Policy and procedure that describes the process to generate and issue AQF certificates within 30 days from the date the learner was assessed as competent.
You should prepare for these types of questions:
Can you talk me through your process to award certificates within 30 calendar days?
Can you provide me the details of the qualification issued to the following learners please?
Can you provide the learner records for the following learners please?
Can we access these learner’s records within the student management system and compare the date of their final assessment with the certificate issuance date?
Published by: Joe Newbery, released 2nd May 2017
© Newbery Consulting 2017