Reminder to existing NatHERS Assessors of 31 December 2015 Cert IV deadline and a request to submit Recognition of Prior Learning Information

The NatHERS Administrator would like to remind existing NatHERS Accredited Assessors that transitional arrangements allowing assessors to be NatHERS accredited while either completing training or seeking recognition of prior learning (RPL) to attain their Certificate IV requirement are due to expire on 31 December 2015. Once these transitional arrangements expire, all assessors will be required to have attained the Certificate IV qualification to be NatHERS accredited.

Assessors who are yet to submit all of the information required by their Registered Training Organisation (RTO) to process their RPL requests are strongly urged to submit any outstanding information as soon as possible. RTOs and Assessor Accrediting Organisations have recently advised that there are still a significant number of assessors who have yet to provide all of the information required to process their RPL request and RTOs expect very high demand in the coming months to process outstanding requests. There are increasing risks that applicants who submit their RPL information late or submit incomplete RPL information may not have their applications processed by the end of this year.  

RTOs have also advised that in some instances the quality of RPL information that has been provided by assessors has not been high. This has caused delays in the processing of requests and in some cases has meant that assessors have not demonstrated the requirements to be granted RPL. If assessors have any questions regarding assessment requirements, they should raise this with their RTO at the earliest opportunity. 

When submitting RPL information, the NatHERS Administrator asks that assessors carefully consider the quality of the information they provide, noting RTOs will have limited capacity to follow up incomplete or poor quality information. Should the RPL not satisfy an RTO's requirements, supplementary Certificate IV course units may not commence until the new year, which would result in a period of time where the assessor would not be able to achieve accreditation under NatHERS.