What is RPL?

Recognition of Prior Learning – RPL, is the acknowledgment of a person’s current skills and knowledge acquired through previous training, work or life experience. Briefly, RPL is a method, approved under the Australian Qualifications Framework, to establish your competency against a set of national standards using a range of alternative assessment criteria. RPL therefore recognises your life skills and the practical knowledge you have acquired no matter how or where. Most importantly, these skills and knowledge need not have been gained in a formal education setting.

Recognition of prior learning (RPL) may be defined in a number of ways, some more expansive than others. However, all definitions include the key notion that RPL involves the assessment of previously unrecognised skills and knowledge an individual has achieved outside the formal education and training system. RPL assesses this unrecognised learning against the requirements of a qualification, in respect of both entry requirements and outcomes to be achieved. By removing the need for duplication of learning,

RPL encourages an individual to continue upgrading their skills and knowledge through structured education and training towards formal qualifications and improved employment outcomes.

The AQF sets out the qualifications standards upon which RPL ultimately relies for its credibility. Under the AQF, each qualification Guideline provides for an RPL pathway as an alternative or non-institutional access point or source of credit. This keeps the system of qualifications open to recognition of the value of learning achieved outside the formal system, as part of everyday living in a continuum of learning throughout ones life.