19 March 2019 Today it was announced by the Department of Education and Training that the implementation of the new credential requirements has been postponed until 1 July 2019. This means, for those of you trying to complete your studies by the original 1 April deadline, you have been effectively granted a three-month extension to have your work submitted, assessed and certificates issued. According to the Department, recent feedback from the vocational education and training (VET) sector showed that trainers and assessors at some RTOs may not have met the new requirements by 1 April 2019, due to the increased number of trainers and assessors accessing gap training. This resulted in some RTOs being unable to keep up with demand to assess and issue relevant documentation by that date. In response to this feedback, Skills Ministers agreed to delay the introduction of these requirements to 1 July 2019, so that trainers and assessors can continue to train while undertaking gap training for a further three months. The Standards for RTOs have been amended accordingly. Please note that no further extensions to the new credential requirements will be made. This announcement has come as a surprise to us and many other TAE providers, as we have been consistently told that extensions would not be possible, given the April 1st deadline was a legislated standard. We acknowledge the pressure that many students and organisations have been under to complete their credentials by the mandated deadline and share your frustrations that this announcement was not made sooner. This being said, it will provide some breathing space for students who were going to struggle to have everything completed and issued in time and some certainty for organisations who were facing the very real prospect of having insufficient qualified staff to fulfil their RTO training and assessment commitments. For already enrolled students, we encourage you to continue to work through your studies and submit outstanding work as soon as you can, to avoid similar time-pressure issues towards the end of June. For those who have not enrolled and need to, we strongly recommend that you register for a course sooner than later. We will continue to work hard in supporting the learning experiences for students, reviewing their assessment submissions and processing certificates for successful candidates. To read the full announcement from the Department of Education and Training visit: https://www.education.gov.au/trainer-and-assessor-credential-requirements Click here for a PDF of some important Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) Marc Ratcliffe CEO – MRWED Training and Assessment