From 1 January 2015, all students doing nationally recognised training need to have a Unique Student Identifier (USI). This includes students doing Vocational Education Training (VET) in schools.
A USI is a reference number made up of numbers and letters. Creating a USI is free. It creates a secure online record of your nationally recognised training that you can access anytime and anywhere, and it’s yours for life.
The USI is linked to the National Vocational Education and Training (VET) Data Collection, and this means an individual’s nationally recognised training and qualifications gained anywhere in Australia, from different training organisations, will be kept all together.
The USI will:
- link a student's VET achievements, regardless of where in Australia they did the course.
- let students easily access secure digital transcripts of their achievements (transcripts will be available from January 2016)
- give students more control over their VET information.
Benefits of the USI initiative
The USI initiative will provide accurate, accessible training records to build data that will allow government to target the skills that industry needs to ensure the future prosperity of Australian businesses. It will become the building block for a range of VET reforms and will bring many advantages to students, training organisations and for the future of Australian industry.
For students and training organisations, the main benefits are:
- Students will be able to get a complete record of their Australian-wide VET achievements from a single, secure and accurate online source.
- There will be immediate access to VET records. This means they can be quickly given to employers, other training organisations etc as proof of VET achievements.
- It will be easier for training organisations to assess students’ pre-requisites, credit transfers and Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL).
For Australian industry and training organisations the USI information means:
- less time in waiting for job applicants to confirm their nationally recognised training qualifications
- sharing of training information will be made easier for training providers and for Australian businesses
- smarter regulation that is evidence-based to address poor quality training and more transparency in the VET sector
- greater efficiency in managing interactions with governments and regulators, simplifying government VET program eligibility and entitlement processing.
- streamlined assessment of course prerequisites, credit transfers and the assessment of eligibility for funding assistance
For more information or to create your own USI please visit www.usi.gov.au.