- [Eleze] Welcome everybody. My name's Eleze. I'm one of the managers here at Training Market Design in the training services team, and thank you for joining us for today's session. I'd like to acknowledge that I'm coming to you from the land of the Gomeroi in Northern New South Wales and pay my respects to elders past, present, and our future leaders. Particularly this week in NAIDOC Week, for our elders who are nurturing our culture and our land. So I pay my respects. As our normal, the way we're normally working is please use the Q&A function as we go through the session today. Keep your questions general in nature, and we'll make every effort to get to them throughout the session as well at the end. Anything that we can't answer, we'll take on notice and provide that to you afterwards. This session is being recorded and we have the links to the sessions on our Smart and Skilled webinar page, where you can find past recordings as well, and this session should be up there within a week. All right, without any further ado, I'd like to hand over to our colleague Brendon Hook, who will take us through today's webinar on Notifications of Enrolment. Thank you, Brendon, over to you.

- [Brendon] Thank you, Eleze, and hi everyone. My name's Brendon Hook. I'm currently the Acting Manager of Stakeholder Strategy Industry and Community Relations. Today we're gonna talk about the notification of enrolment process, but firstly, I'd just like to recognize the ongoing custodians of the land and waterways where we work and live today. And today I'm coming from the Dharug people's land. We pay respect to elders past and present, as ongoing teachers of knowledge, songlines, and stories, and we strive to ensure every Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander learner in New South Wales achieve their potential through education. As you can see, these are the contents of what we're gonna cover off today. Looking at the overview of the NoE process before you create an NoE and so on and so forth. Though there is a fair bit to get through. So we'll kick on now. Thanks Tony. The notification or NoE is a process provider is used to create a commitment ID for each student participating in smart skilled subsidized training and the NoE process is done by your STS online portal. The NoE must be completed before you commence any training and done in conjunction with your organization's enrollment process. And each student must have a commitment ID so you can report on the student's training and receive payment for training. This process does not apply to school-based apprenticeships or traineeships. But we'll provide more info on that later in this module. Before creating a notification of enrollment, you need to check on a few things and ask your potential student for information. Gathering all this information before creating the NoE will make a smoother process for you and the student and the following slides will give a brief overview of the information required. Before creating an NoE students must have a USI, and I'm sure we're all familiar with the USI process, but the provider must assist the student in applying for a USI or apply to the student registrar. For a student identifier to be assigned to a student. The provider must assist the student in creating a USI with the USI registry or create the USI on the student's behalf with their permission and a copy of their identification documents. Ensure that every perspective student sets their access control in relation to the USI. To allow the department and the provider the appropriate levels of access to their USI records, you will need to request a student identifies registrar, to verify that an identifier is the student's USI prior to using it or providing it to the department. Providers must ensure that all students considering enrolling in subsidized training receive or are aware of how to access certain information either electronically or in hard copy form. A really good tip is to ensure that the USI reflects the student's current legal name for a smoother enrollment and reporting process. If the USI hasn't been amended to reflect any legal name changes, the USI cannot validate against their name until the legal name is amended with the USI registry. And there's a link provided. We'll cover off a little bit about eligibility now and eligibility for Smart and Skilled programs except entitlement apprenticeships and traineeship program. A person who is eligible to receive subsidized training in all Smart and Skilled programs, is a person who at the time of enrollment in a qualification or course on the New South Wales Skills List or a short course with a smart skilled provider. A, lives or works in New South Wales and that's determined by their postcode, their place of residence or place of work. Or an aboriginal Torres Strait Islander student who does not live or work in New South Wales but lives in a specific defined interstate border area is eligible for government subsidized training, And C is an Australian citizen perm resident and New Zealand citizen, et cetera. The eligibility criteria for Smart and Skilled entitlement apprenticeship and traineeship program. Is a person who is eligible to receive subsidized training in the Smart and Skilled entitlement apprenticeship and traineeship program is a person who at the time of commensurate is a New South Wales apprentice or new entrant trainee and has an approved training contract in New South Wales. The qualification that is being undertaken is on the New South Wales Skills List, and that the qualification that is being undertaken is showing on their training contract. All New South Wales apprenticeship qualifications are on the New South Wales Skills List. A large number but not all traineeship qualifications are on the Skills List as well. Proof of eligibility. A student will be required to prove eligibility at enrolment. A student declaration is acceptable where a form of evidence is required to be cited or collected by the provider. All evidence must be able to be verified by the provider. The department may request a copy of the evidence or proof that the evidence has been cited. Where evidence is cited but not checked. The provider must maintain a record that confirms the citing of the evidence and description of the evidence. The record must be dated and signed by a person authorized by the provider. The name of the signatory and their position should also be captured. Where the evidence provided by the student is a copy of the original, the copy must be certified by a person who is on the list of approved witnesses who can verify documents and there is a link provided for such. A table on page seven of the Smart and Skilled student eligibility policy outlines the proof of eligibility requirements and is a link provided for that. Credit transfer or recognition of prior learning CT or RPL. Before enrolling a student you must confirm with the student if they have done any previous VET study that could make them eligible for CT or have previous life/work experience that could be considered for RPL. Where an eligible student is granted CT or RPL for one or more units of competency, the qualification price will be adjusted and a new student fee will be determined. The qualification price is based on both fixed and variable costs and adjustments will be made to both of these cost components. Where CT or RPL in granted enrollment, a provider will need to use a Smart and Skilled provider calculator to determine the applicable student fee. Visas, Refugees and asylum seekers who hold particular visas are eligible for Smart and Skilled. So please refer to the student eligibility policy link below. Visas accepted for apprenticeships and traineeships differ from refugees in asylum seeker visas. So please refer to the link below for a table of all the visa numbers and descriptions. Consumer feedback and complaints handling. You must develop and implement your own consumer feedback and complaints, handling policies, procedures and systems. The consumer protection policy must comply with the requirements set out in the Smart and Skilled contract, the Smart and Skilled consumer protection policy, the New South Wales Quality Framework and also ASQA requirements. For more information, refer to the Smart and Skilled contract and Smart and Skilled Consumer Protection Strategy, new South Wales Quality Framework and ASQA. Checking the New South Wales Skills List and your activity schedule. The qualification that you were creating an NoE for must be on the New South Wales Skills List. The skills list defines the qualifications eligible for government funding under Smart and Skilled. The New South Wales Skills List was developed through extensive labor market analysis and consultation with industry and community along with peak bodies in industry bodies. It is reviewed annually to ensure it meets the changing skill needs of the industry and regularly updated during the year to reflect changes to qualifications, vocational training orders for apprenticeships and traineeships and the New South Wales skills board has endorsed the Skills List. The Skills List covers all qualification levels from certificate one to advanced diploma. Select foundation skill courses, all apprenticeships and selected traineeships. The list comprises training package qualifications, foundation skills and accredited courses and providers can only deliver entitlement and targeted programs that are on their activity schedule. The activity schedule is the approval to access Smart and Skilled funding to deliver the qualifications listed. Even if qualifications are listed on the provider's scope with ASQA, they must also be on your activity schedule to access Smart and Skilled funding. For the TPPPQ program, the qualification does not have to be on your activity schedule, but this program can be accessed if you have the qualification on your ASQA scope. Next page please. There are two streams under Smart and Skilled, entitlement and targeted skills, and we'll go over those over the next few pages. The entitlement program, this dream encourages individuals to gain a post-school qualification at certificate one, two, or three level or an apprenticeship or traineeship at any Australian qualification framework level. The stream contains the following programs, entitlement foundational skills, entitlement full qualification and entitlement apprenticeship and traineeships. And the graph to the right shows the qualifications that fit under each entitlement program. The targeted priority stream. This stream contains the following programs, targeted priorities for qualifications. TPFQ will target a priorities pre-vocational and part qualifications or TPPPQ. The targeted priorities for qualification. This program includes qualifications at cert four diploma and advanced diploma level on the New South Wales Skills List. The TPPPQ program enables industry and providers to rapidly respond to changing economic conditions and skills needs. It aims to improve the capability of workers, those moving into work and those seeking to retrain or upskill. And please refer to the TPPPQ module. I think it's going be scheduled in July . The targeted priorities for qualification program includes qualifications at cert four diploma or advanced diploma level on the New South Wales Skills List. And the graph to the right shows the qualifications that fit under each targeted priorities program. And all qualifications delivered under the programs must be included on the New South Wales Skills List. Prices and fees and subsidies. Each Smart and Skilled subsidized qualification or course has a student fee, a subsidy, a qualification price. The qualification price comprises the student fee and the provider subsidy. Students are required to pay their fee if applicable and the New South Wales government pays you the subsidy and any loadings if applicable. You must only charge the fee set out by the department. There are different categories of student fees based on the program qualification or course and the needs of the student. Fees are charged for the whole course or qualification rather than on a year by year basis. Respective students who are eligible for fee-free training, a fee exemption or a fee-free scholarship did not pay a fee. You'll receive a subsidy from the department for the total cost of the course or qualification. Prospective students who are eligible for a concession fee pay a discounted fee. This is a flat fee based on the qualification level. You'll receive a subsidy for the cost of the qualification fee minus the concession fee. Perspective students may also be eligible for a fee free scholarship for courses up to and including certificate four level. And fee free scholarship eligibility may be subject to change. Eligible apprenticeship and new entrant training fees are covered under the fee free apprenticeship and fee free traineeship initiative. Loadings, loadings are paid in addition to the subsidies by the department and loadings make up for additional costs associated with providing trading and support to disadvantaged students or students outside of metropolitan areas. Loadings are payable based on the following needs, Aboriginal students, students with a disability, long-term unemployed or location, for example regional or remote areas in New South Wales. And you should retain the required evidence for additional training and learning support provided. And there's a link below to the Smart and Skilled fee administration policy. Before enrolling a student, check the following, the student has a valid USI, the student is eligible for Smart and Skilled. You have verified proof of eligibility, is a student eligible for RPL or CT, if applicable student has a correct visa. The qualification is listed on your provider activity schedule and if applicable, check students eligible for fee exemption or concessional. When the student has provided all information listed in 5.2 of the Smart and Skilled operating guidelines at the time of enrolment. Enrolling prospective students into STS online. You can make eligibility and fee inquiries using the provider calculator in STS online. If you make an inquiry which results in a quote, you'll be issued a quote ID commencing with the letter 'Q'. You must obtain evidence of consent from the prospective student prior to progressing to a quote to a notification of enrollment resulting in a commitment ID, and you must provide the student with a copy of their NoE and retain your own copy as well. You can begin to enrol prospective students through the NoE process once you have accepted your contract, review, notice or variation and the approved qualification activity schedule. The provider calculator allows you to enrol perspective students one at a time or multiple prospective students at once. And this is known as a bulk upload by uploading an Excel spreadsheet containing prospective student data into the calculator and data uploaded through the provider calculator will return one of four results. Notified, eligible, ineligible, or rejected. It is your responsibility to ensure that where an ineligible result is returned for a prospective student, you edit or complete any additional information and resubmit to complete the NoE process. Please Note a quote ID will expire 14 days from the date of issue. If you do not progress to complete an NoE and obtain a commitment ID for the student. A commitment ID will expire six weeks from the planned start date entered on the NoE. The commitment ID must report as accepted data through eReporting before the expiry date or the commitment ID will expire. And a new commitment ID will need to be created by processing a new NoE when a commitment ID expires and the prospective student wishes to commence training. If a student is awarded credit transfer or RPL at the time of enrollment, the units of competency for which they're receiving CT or RPL must be entered into the NOE for the provider calculator to return an accurate subsidy, loadings and student fee amounts were applicable. The NoE process should be taken prior to commencement of trade as you will not be able to undertake this process once training has commenced. If you do not complete the NoE process and attain a commitment ID, the student will not be included in the eReporting and payment will not be received for training. When processing an NoE ensure you have selected the correct region, qualification and program for commitment ID creation. If an error is made, you'll need to cancel the commitment ID and create a new one with the correct details. If the student does not commence training within the original commitment IDs corresponding activity period. The provider must cancel the commitment ID and create a new one in the activity period. The NoE process should be conducted in conjunction with your own organization's enrollment process. Enrolling students in multiple park qualifications. A student undertaking a part qualification under the TPPPQ program will not be charged a fee. A student seeking to achieve a full qualification should not be enrolled in multiple part qualifications that make them eligible for the issue of the full qual. So I'll just repeat that. A student seeking to achieve a full qual, should not be enrolled in multiple part qualifications to make them eligible for a full qual. The student must be enrolled in the full qualification under the relevant Smart and Skilled full qualification program and will be required to pay the relevant fee. Completing a park qual under the TPPPQ program does not affect the fee eligibility of a student undertaking a full qualification under Smart and Skilled. The NOE process is the same for TPPPQ through the provider calculator and you must use the PAS number provided on the activity schedule for the part qualification process to process a notification of enrolment to create the commitment ID for partial qualification and below are some useful guides that can be found on STS online. Once you've successfully processed an NoE, you must save copies of both the provider and student copy providing the student their own copy of the NoE as well. The details on the NoE, the provider copy must be entered into the provider's learning managing system against the student's enrollment. The commitment ID for the student must be entered for the student's enrollment, otherwise enrollment will not be included in any eReporting. If using the bulk upload for NoE you download a spreadsheet from STS online to import details into your own LMS. The provider must ensure that their LMS system is set up for Smart and Skilled. Each LMS is different and the provider may need to seek assistance from your own LMS support team to ensure correct setup. School-based apprenticeships or SBATS, SBATS are available to all year 10, 11, and 12 high school students in New South Wales. They allow students to commence an apprenticeship or commence and complete a traineeship while at school. A school-based apprenticeship or traineeship combines paperwork training in school and as well as an industry recognized national qualification which will gain credits towards the HSC. Some apprenticeships and traineeships can contribute towards the ATAR and details of fee arrangements and student entitlements are outlined in the school-based apprenticeship fee administration policy. Under the New South Wales government's fee-free Apprenticeship and Traineeship Initiative. New South Wales school-based apprentices and trainees who are funded under Smart and Skilled are eligible for free training. School-based apprentices and trainees eligible under this initiative will be exempt from fees for their apprenticeship or traineeship qualification. At the conclusion of this initiative. School-based apprentices or trainees must not be levied the student fee or any additional costs directly. The payment of student fees and any other cost if applicable is managed by the student's school sector. eReporting, you must submit training activity data via the eReporting section in STS online for all funded students at least every 28 days. Regardless of whether the student has progressed in a UoC. The system may take up the 24 hours to validate submitted data on the time of upload as only one file can be uploaded and validated at a time and you have a limit of three data uploads per day. As a Smart and Skilled provider, you are required to submit training activity data using UoC outcome codes and before entering outcome codes you must ensure you have chosen the correct code and have the required evidence. And there will be a module in a webinar on this topic to follow The NoE Provider Quick Reference guide, you need to know this. The perspective student must meet the Smart and Skilled eligibility criteria. The student must have a commitment ID before any training can commence through the NoE process in STS online. The qualification that you are creating an NoE for; must be on the New South Wales Skills List and on their activity schedule. Visa holders must be able to work and study in Australia to be eligible for an apprenticeship or traineeship. Refugees and asylum seekers who hold particular visas are also eligible. Number two, Check this. You have access to STS online. Check your learning management system is set up to take Smart and Skilled enrollments. Check the student enrollment and all relevant information such as the USI provided or created. Any applicable CT or RPL or student information provided and correct from an NoE as this will affect student fees, exemptions or concessions. Check the student eligibility for Smart and Skilled training and check that you have cited or collected acceptable, evidence for Smart and Skilled students eligibility and visa holders if applicable. Do this, create a commitment ID through NoE for all Smart and Skilled enrollments. Ensure that you are selecting the correct region, qualification and program for the NoE Otherwise you will need to cancel the commitment ID and create another. Enter or upload details from the NoE. Provide a copy into the learning management system and report training activity at least every 28 days through eReporting. And number four is a link to a heap of resources which can be commonly found on STS online under the support documents. Thank you very much.

- Thank you. Thanks very much Brendon. I appreciate you taking us through that and I know a few people were having some trouble with hearing that, but it may be perhaps at different ends there whether it's a user issue or not. But I really appreciate you taking us through that and acknowledgement to the team working behind the scenes also to pull together the presentation. Now we do have a number of outstanding questions and I know that we do have a limited number of people on board today to help us answer these. So what I might do is see if we can, if someone could let me know in the background if they're happy to take answers. Otherwise what we can do is take all these on notice and make sure that they are provided to you, you know, within the week. So let's see how we go. Alright, USI verification can be done through our SMS or it needs to go through student register only. I'm not sure if anyone would like to take that question. You can either type it in if you're on the panel, otherwise we will take that on notice I'm not familiar with the whole USI side of it, so sorry, I can't help with answering that. Alright, in the case that we proceed with notification of enrollment before we have received the TCID and training has commenced, do we have to wait to submit unit commencement evidence for commencement claims? Can I check in with anyone on the team? All right, we'll we'll hold that one over. Apologies we can't answer that live today. There's another question related to that as well. In terms of students not declaring on the enrollment form that they've completed prior quals or want a credit transfer and they only get the information at a later stage. So the question is here, what advice do we have in this instance? I guess reporting would then result in a change in the outcome code or the actual reporting code and then that would impact payment further. But what we'll do for these technical ones, I don't wanna give you the wrong advice and we'll take those on notice and make sure that you have the correct information. So some of these can go on to an FAQ, because we do have regular themes here, particularly if we don't have your name. So we'll see how we can get that answer to you. Thank you. Okay, this is around an age care qualification waiting to be added to scope and how long will it take to deliver under smart skill after submit an aquis? So that would be just need to have the qualification approved so the aquis form submission would need to go through, be assessed and then you would be notified when you're ready to go. Okay. Is there a link to the eligible visa list? We know that that is in one of our documents. If it's not on the STS online it could be on the Smart and Skilled side. If I'm one of the team here you can drop the link in to that question please. That will be helpful.

- [Brendon] Yeah. Hi Eleze. There is a link in the presentation to the eligible visa list when it goes out to providers.

- All right. Okay, thank you very much. Okay, we talked about the credit transfer. Do the fees change? Yes, I believe they will. There'll be an adjustment made so that again would need to have that technical answer. I don't want to give you wrong information there. Around refunds, is there anyone on the team who can speak to refunds at all? Otherwise we'll take that one on notice. In terms of training contract approvals, I'm not familiar with that one either. I'm sorry. We'll need to take that one on notice. I know that there are different timeframes if we're talking about apprenticeship, traineeships SBATS. Okay, just going through, LMS, learning management system or student management systems, I think that is the term that people are using there. Is LMS in the webinar referred to as student management system for exporting NAT files under STS online for a reporting. I think that is correct Brendon, that's what you are referring to in there.

- [Brendon] Yeah, that's correct. That is right. Yep.

- Wonderful. Thank you. Can anyone speak to the school-based trainee if an NoE does not apply? Don't think we have any of the A&T team here, so apologies everyone. Okay Jason, are you're talking about screenshots of the actual STS online system? That would be helpful if we haven't already included that in a past webinar. That's something we can take on and dedicate a session to that for future webinars that we plan beyond our formal modules so we'll take that on board. But otherwise I would ask, I think we have had a few webinars particularly early. The first one may have talked about the STS online system but we can certainly have that provided or you can also, if you have been assigned a strategic relationship manager, please seek advice from them. They can also support you with navigating that as well. Thank you. Okay, apologies Stacy, there's questions there they're probably a little bit unique for us, so we'll take this one on board and make sure that you get an answer. Yeah, Ryan, there are also codes in, I think it's in the operating guidelines that might indicate which is suitable. But again we do have an upcoming session that talks about the outcome codes. Thank you. This is another technical one, sorry, there's a few there. Okay, Kayleigh, in terms of the part quals, because we're now reverting to TPPPQ standard practice. The part quals that lists that was provided previously was under a specific funding which no longer applies, so. And I do believe in previous webinars we may have mentioned that if there was going to be a list, we'd make sure that that is communicated, but I think the TPPPQ guidelines and policy apply, thanks. Thanks for your feedback around the STS system with step-by-step. So we'll take that on board and I will be running a, like a feedback session towards the end of July just to gauge, provider feedback as to what other sessions you would like. So we will make sure that we capture these suggestions as well. Sorry, I'm just scrolling through to make sure if there's anything we can answer. Otherwise we will take these on board and recognize there's quite a bit in the Q&A, so thank you. Another one around STS. Okay, questions around, you know, notification for students who are completing certain number of units. Again, this would be something that we would need to get back to you on quite specifically around contract management there. Yes, so April there will be a dedicated session for the apprenticeship and traineeship components of the contract. So that's in a couple of weeks time I think it is. So next week's session is around the TPPPQ, which I'm sure there'll be a lot of interest in that. And then not quite sure if the next one after that. But we've got a few more sessions formally organized and we'll make sure that you have the details, you know, week by week. Yeah, thank you, in terms of the FAQ websites, what we're hoping to do is make sure that we have some themes identified from all the questions and then the responses and we'll make them available on our FAQ Smart and SKilled applications FAQ site. So we'll definitely do that. Great, thank you everyone. I've noted and apologies that I can't answer a lot of the questions raised there, but I certainly, excuse me, very conscious not to give you incorrect information. So I'd much rather we go to the experts in the team and make sure that you are provided with the right answers. So appreciate today's session was a little bit shorter than normal, but I'm sure you could all use a bit of extra time back in your day. So thank you again to Brandon, thank you to the team behind the scenes and we'll look forward to seeing you next week for our next session. Alright, thank you everybody and bye for now.