Transcript FAQs for employers
What is the Unique Student Identifier (USI)?
The Unique Student Identifier is an individual’s education number for life, creating an online record of training attainments in Australia.
The USI is supported by Commonwealth legislation, the Student Identifiers Act 2014.
Australian education or training providers must submit an annual record of the nationally recognised training they deliver to the national VET collections.
As part of that collection, a USI is assigned to each training recipient and acts to link together their individual training records across different providers, states and years.
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What is the USI authenticated VET transcript?
For USI account holders (students), an authenticated VET transcript displays the outcomes of the nationally recognised VET training that they have completed since 1 January 2015.
A VET transcript provides evidence of the training completed by an individual, just like training qualifications do.
Australian education or training providers are legally required to accept training evidence in the form of:
- qualifications issued by other education or training providers
- VET transcripts issued by the Student Identifiers Registrar.
VET Transcripts do not replace actual training qualifications, certificates or statement of attainments issued by education or training providers.
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What is in a VET transcript?
VET transcripts are compiled from information that education or training providers must submit regularly about the training undertaken by their students as part of the national VET collections.
The VET transcript includes:
- student name
- name and identifier of each nationally recognised VET qualification completed since 1 January 2015 and the providers that issued each qualification
- name and identifier of each unit of competency or module of a VET course studied since 1 January 2015 and reported by the training organisation through the national data VET collections, also known as AVETMISS (updated as the data becomes available)
- date the transcript was prepared
- outcomes of training.
Details of training outcomes include:
- the education or training providers that delivered them
- start and completion dates
- source of funding.
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Full or extract VET transcript
Students can choose who can view their VET transcript and how it is viewed. They can give permission to third parties to view their full VET transcript or a VET transcript extract. This allows the student to select exactly which training to display.
Accessing a full or extract VET transcript
Students can permit others (referred to as a ‘third party’) to view their VET transcript to verify their training records. The full or extract VET transcript will include both a clickable link along with a name and document number or QR code displayed on the bottom of the PDF. Simply click the link and enter the name and document number when prompted or scan the QR code to access the verified online record.
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Accessing a full or extract VET transcript
Students can permit others (referred to as a ‘third party’) to view their VET transcript to verify their training records.
The full or extract VET transcript will include both a clickable link and QR code, along with a document number displayed on the bottom of the PDF. Simply click the link and enter the name and document number when prompted or scan the QR code to access the verified online record.
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Do VET transcripts replace credentials issued by training organisations?
VET transcripts issued by the Student Identifiers Registrar are based on the same evidence of training as the certificates or statements of attainment issued by education or training providers.
The VET transcript includes information about nationally recognised training reported by education or training providers after 1 January 2015 and is updated on an annual or quarterly basis. This means that the VET transcript will need to be used in conjunction with other evidence for training completed before 2015 and also for training completed since the last update.
If the authenticity of training documents is in doubt, contact the relevant training organisation/s.
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Is the training in the VET transcript up to date?
Training organisations report either quarterly or annually to the national VET collections, so there will always be a time lag in displaying recently completed training. VET transcripts should be read in conjunction with other evidence of training.
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A qualification or attainment isn’t listed on the VET transcript
There can be several reasons for a paper qualification not matching a VET transcript:
- recently completed qualifications might not yet have been uploaded to the National VET Data Collections (quarterly for government funded training and annually for fee for service training). Find out more about training data collection and VET transcripts
- the student might not have provided their USI for that training or the provider did not submit a USI with the relevant training information to the National VET Data Collections
- a small number of RTOs, courses and individuals are exempt from the USI requirements. For example, training completed before 2015, national security and defence courses and single day courses completed before 2018.
For any concerns about the authenticity of USI transcripts, contact the relevant education or training provider.
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