Early education and care educators must hold appropriate qualifications as specified in the National Regulations, which can also be found on ACECQA’s website Qualification requirements | ACECQA.
Approved providers have a legal obligation under the National Law to ensure educators hold appropriate qualifications. To ensure compliance, persons with management or control of a service (PMCs) must be vigilant and ensure qualifications are authentic.
There are several simple and effective ways to verify vocational education and training qualifications. These include:
- Checking that the qualification was issued by an approved Registered Training Organisation (RTO) by searching the National Training Register. Enter details of the RTO number, name, or ABN for their approval status and scope of registration. The qualification is valid if it was issued by an approved RTO during their period or registration, and the qualification is listed on their scope.
- Ensuring that the qualification has not been cancelled by visiting the Australian Skills Quality Agency’s (ASQA) website at Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA) and search for 'All Qualification Integrity Actions'. A list of all cancelled qualifications and RTO will appear in chronological order. In 2025, ASQA undertook regulatory actions against several providers offering early childhood education courses: Luvium Pty Ltd, SPES Education Pty Ltd (SPES), Gills College, Arizona College, Christa College, and Unique College of Technology. ASQA is continuing a program of regulatory actions in 2026 against non-genuine and bad-faith providers. Remember cancelled qualifications cannot be used for employment as an educator.
- Checking that all requirements for the qualification have been completed, and the recipient has completed the training within required course durations. False or non-genuine qualifications have often been completed in very short timeframes. These details can be checked easily by asking the candidate to supply an official VET transcript from the holder’s Unique Student Identifier. (USI) account.
- Knowing the requirements of common vocational courses for the early childhood education and care sector or checking this information on the National Training Register. You can then check official transcripts to ensure all required units of competency have been completed, including all mandatory work placement hours and required duration of study. For example: the Certificate III in Early Childhood Education and Care requires candidates to complete 17 units (15 core units and 2 electives) and complete a minimum of 160 work placement hours to obtain this qualification. Check the dates that each competency was completed to ensure the person completed their qualification within the mandatory time frames. Certificate III qualifications should be completed within a minimum period of 6 months (600 hours total). The Diploma of Early Childhood Education and Care qualification requires 12 core units and 3 elective units to be completed within a minimum of 12 months.
National vocational qualifications are usually updated every 5 years. To ensure your staff have current knowledge and skills, check whether their qualification is current or that they have maintained their skills and knowledge through continuous employment in a relevant role in the early education and care sector.
If a potential employee’s qualification was obtained more than 5 years ago, check their resume and references to ensure their employment history reflects ongoing engagement in the sector and includes regular use of the skills and knowledge at the level of the qualification. For example, a diploma-qualified educator needs to continue to engage in a diploma-qualified level of work to be able to retain the currency of their skills and knowledge. If there are substantial gaps, the educator needs to demonstrate that they have undertaken additional training to update their skills. This is particularly important for units relating to first aid and anaphylaxis competencies because a lack of understanding or skills in these areas can endanger the lives of children.
Higher education qualifications including Bachelor degrees required for Early Childhood Teachers (ECTs) can be verified via The Tertiary Education Quality Standards Authority’s (TEQSA) National Register at National Register | Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency. To verify an individual’s qualification, you can also use the USI Student Portal at Welcome to USI - Unique Student Identifier with the individual’s consent or contact the specific university’s or higher education provider’s Registrar and make a formal request to verify a person’s qualification. If an ECT is currently registered with the Victorian Institute of Teaching (VIT), then you can be assured that their qualification has already been verified.
Remember that qualification requirements do differ in each jurisdiction. For more comprehensive information about qualification requirements, please visit Qualifications | ACECQA.
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