Student toolkit

What you need at each stage of a nationally recognised course, from before you enrol to after you finish. Most of it is not specific to CHT — it is how the Australian VET system works, and knowing it is what stops you paying for something you already hold, or holding a document that turns out not to be recognised.

For the external government systems, see resources. For your rights in detail, see policies. For every page on this site with a line on what is on it, see the sitemap.

The systems we currently link for students

Our source Student Toolkit says we will tell each learner which tools to use. Do not assume you need every portal: use the one named in your course instructions, and ask us if a login or document is missing.

The portal and document links were reachable on 23 October 2026. Access still depends on your individual enrolment and credentials; do not share passwords or upload personal documents to a portal we have not directed you to use.

Before you enrol

What you must be told before you pay anything

Standard 2.1 of the Outcome Standards for RTOs sets a list, and the timing is the part that matters: it has to be given to you before enrolment or before any fees are payable, whichever comes first. The list is specific.

• A full and accurate schedule of fees, including any prepaid fees
• The training product code and title, its duration, the modes of delivery, the location, the dates and the scheduling
• Whether any licensing or occupational licence requirements apply — the single most useful item on the list, and the reason a course can be legitimate training and still not let you do the job
• Any third-party arrangements, and which services those third parties deliver
• The training support and wellbeing services available to you
• Every obligation to acquire materials or equipment, undertake a work placement, or travel and pay for accommodation to attend one
• Any cost of obtaining a USI or of withdrawing
• How to lodge an enquiry, and how long to expect to wait for an answer

The RTO must also tell you as soon as practicable about changes that affect you, including the transition of a superseded, deleted or expired training product. If a provider cannot produce that information in writing before taking money, that is the point to stop.

Your Unique Student Identifier

For nationally recognised training, a Unique Student Identifier (USI) is generally required before a qualification or Statement of Attainment can be issued, unless an applicable exemption applies. See the official USI exemption guidance. A USI is free at usi.gov.au. If you already have one, recover it rather than creating another.

If you have studied in Australian nationally recognised training since 2015, you already have one. Recover it. Do not create a second.

This is the most consequential piece of admin in this whole toolkit, and it is the one most often got wrong. A duplicate identifier splits your training history across two records. When you later apply for credit transfer, the RTO checks the USI you gave it, finds nothing, and the units you genuinely completed look as though they never happened. Part 3A of the Act also attaches a civil penalty of 60 penalty units to applying for an identifier when you have already been assigned one.

Four things worth knowing about how an RTO must handle your USI:

There is a narrow exemption for international students who complete all of their study outside Australia, and an individual exemption you can apply to the Registrar for. If you study under an exemption, the RTO must tell you before enrolment completes or training starts — whichever comes first — that your results will not be accessible through the Commonwealth and will not appear on an authenticated VET transcript. Training completed under an exemption cannot be added to a USI account retrospectively.

The pre-training review

Every learner completes one before enrolling. It is required of the RTO under Standard 2.2 of the 2025 Outcome Standards for RTOs, and it is not a sales step. It must consider your language, literacy and numeracy, your digital literacy, and your individual requirements including physical skills, prior experience and any prerequisites or entry requirements, and it must establish whether you are appropriately placed in the course.

Name the instrument when you cite that number: two instruments have a "Standard 2.2". Outcome Standard 2.2 is the pre-enrolment suitability review and applies to every learner. National Code 2018 Standard 2.2 is a separate obligation about assessing an overseas student's English, qualifications or work experience for course entry, and applies only to student visa holders.

The review does three things for you:

1. Confirms the qualification is the right one
2. Identifies recognition of prior learning and credit transfer opportunities
3. Establishes what support you need

The LLN assessment sits inside it, and so does the RPL conversation. This is the moment to raise existing experience or existing units. Our own student material states that RPL applications may only be made before enrolment or the start of study. The RTO must also be able to produce evidence of each pre-training review, so it is a documented step rather than a conversation. See expression of interest.

Language, literacy and numeracy, and ACSF Level 3

You will complete an LLN assessment as part of the application and enrolment process. Our own course information states that learners are expected to have learning, reading, writing, oral communication and numeracy skills at Australian Core Skills Framework (ACSF) Level 3, which is equivalent to senior secondary school level. That expectation applies across multiple qualifications we offer, including the Certificate III and Certificate IV programs in hospitality, business, and leadership and management.

The assessment determines your ACSF level and does three things:

1. Identifies your current skill level, and whether you have the minimum skills to participate successfully and develop the employability skills the course requires
2. Identifies whether you will need LLN support to undertake the course
3. Informs the training and assessment strategy designed for you

It is not a screening test for its own sake. Where support is needed, the RTO is then required to provide it, and our material says anyone wanting help with language, literacy or numeracy can speak confidentially with their trainer, and that training and assessment methods can be discussed and varied to help a participant demonstrate competence.

Units with prerequisites

Some units cannot be taken in any order, and a prerequisite discovered late delays completion.

The packaging rules for each qualification mark units that carry one or more prerequisites. Check the individual unit record on training.gov.au rather than assuming, and confirm the sequence at enrolment.

How long a qualification should take

The Australian Qualifications Framework sets an expected volume of learning for each level, and it is independent of the delivery mode:

The volume must be sufficient for a graduate to achieve the learning outcomes. The regulator names "accelerating or shortening training without allowing students sufficient time for skill development and knowledge application" as a risk, and separately names marketing unrealistically short courses as a risk in its own right. A full Certificate III advertised as completable in a few weeks is the thing those provisions exist to catch.

Reading the codes

Every nationally recognised qualification, skill set and unit has a code, and the code carries information. Once you can read it you can verify a claim in about thirty seconds.

So SITHFAB021 is a hospitality food-and-beverage unit; SIT30821 is a Certificate III in the tourism and hospitality package; SITSS00071 is a skill set. A skill set is not a qualification — it is a defined group of units with its own code, and it produces a Statement of Attainment rather than a testamur.

RTO 3722's scope currently holds 17 qualifications, 81 skill sets and 579 units, all at extent "deliver and assess". One qualification on that list, SIR30216 Certificate III in Retail, carries an end date of 28 June 2024 and is not available. Its CRICOS registration, provider code 04242E, covers three qualifications only — SIT40422 (116358F), SIT50322 (118427D) and SIT50422 (115534C) — so if you are on a student visa the rest of the scope is not open to you.

Checking a provider yourself

All of this is public, and none of it requires asking the provider.

An RTO’s national scope does not itself establish state licensing approval. Check the relevant regulator’s provider and recognition rules for food safety, alcohol service and gaming. Victorian RSG is free approved training: online modules through RSG Online and venue-arranged sessions with venue support workers. National SITHGAM training does not replace it. See the official training requirements and our RSG guide.

One caution about the National Register: the scope record does not carry a state or territory field. It tells you what a provider may deliver and assess, not where. Delivery location has to come from the provider. Our own footprint is not uniform — commercial cookery is SA, TAS, VIC and WA, kitchen management is VIC and WA, and both diplomas are Victoria only.

RPL and credit transfer are not the same thing

An RTO must offer both, must make you aware of the policy, must document the decision, and must make it in a way that is fair, transparent and consistent between students while maintaining the integrity of the training product. Credit transfer can be prevented by a licensing or regulatory requirement, but not by the RTO's preference, and where it is granted Standard 1.7 requires it to be recorded on your AQF certification documentation or your authenticated VET transcript — so recognised units appear on the paperwork rather than being silently assumed.

Using the wrong word has a real cost. Ask for RPL when you already hold the unit and you have volunteered for an assessment you did not need. See skills assessment.

While you are studying

Support you are entitled to

Reasonable adjustments are worth understanding properly. If a disability or other circumstance affects how you can demonstrate competence, the RTO must consider adjusting the method of assessment, and must do so consistently with the Disability Standards for Education 2005. If an adjustment is not appropriate or not possible, you must be told the reasons. What does not change is the competency standard itself — the unit's requirements are the same for everyone, and an adjustment must not jeopardise the integrity of the training product or the industry standard. That is what keeps the qualification meaningful to an employer. You should be able to disclose a disability at enrolment and throughout, not only at the start.

What assessment itself has to satisfy

This is the part students rarely know, and it is the basis of any challenge to a result. Standard 1.4 requires every assessment to meet four principles of assessment and every judgement to apply four rules of evidence.

Two related protections. Under Standard 1.3 the assessment tool must have been reviewed before it was used, and a purchased tool must be contextualised to the actual cohort rather than applied generically. And no assessment judgement may be made by a person working under direction — they may teach and gather evidence, but the decision belongs to someone credentialled to make it. See trainers and assessors.

What competency actually requires

Competency is not a mark, and it is not attendance. Several hospitality units specify a minimum number of real occasions, which is why a one-day course cannot produce them:

If a course promises one of these in materially less, that is the thing to question. Unrealistically short courses are a risk ASQA names explicitly, and so is accelerating training without allowing enough time for skills to develop.

If you disagree with a result

You have a right of appeal under Standard 2.8. Being assessed as not yet competent is a decision, and decisions can be appealed. You must be told your right to appeal and all avenues for independent review, and that review must be available at no or low cost.

Separately, Standard 2.7 covers complaints, which concern conduct rather than decisions. A complaint can be made in any form — it does not have to be written on a form to count, and an informal conversation with a trainer is still a complaint. There is no longer a fixed statutory response period: the old 60-calendar-day rule was repealed in 2025, and the RTO now sets and publishes its own reasonable timeframes, with escalation avenues. So ask for the published timeframe and hold the provider to that. Ask us for the policy; we are required to make the procedures publicly available. See policies and contact.

After you finish

What you receive

An RTO must issue certification within 30 calendar days of the completion of the assessment, provided you completed the training product and have paid all agreed fees. It must not issue certification to anyone who has not been assessed as meeting the training product requirements.

What must appear on the documents:

Your USI must not be printed on either document. If it is, that is a defect in the document, not a feature.

Documents that are not nationally recognised

A document titled Certificate of Achievement, Certificate of Completion or Certificate of Attendance, with no unit code and no RTO number, is not a nationally recognised outcome — however well the course was run and however much it cost. The test is the code and the RTO number, then whether that unit sits on that RTO's current scope.

The NRT logo is a second, quicker test, and it works in both directions. It must appear on AQF certification documentation issued by a registered training organisation, and it must not appear on any other testamur or transcript of results, or be used in a way that creates a misleading impression. It may only be used in association with nationally recognised training — a training package qualification, an accredited qualification or short course, a skill set or a unit of competency. So the logo on a participation certificate is a defect, and its absence from a Statement of Attainment is too.

One further prohibition matters if your course was arranged through an agent, an employer or a broker: a third party may not issue AQF certification documentation, use the NRT logo, or use the RTO's branding. Your certificate comes from the registered training organisation itself.

A certificate issued under a different name

RTO 3722 has traded as Victorian Bar School (from 1994), Complete Hospitality Training (2011), Ready Serve Achieve Melbourne (2018), Coffee School by CHT (2021), Alchemy Institute of Australia (2024), and Complete Healthcare Training, which ran from 24 October 2023 until 19 April 2025.

The RTO code identifies the issuer, not the brand. A document in any of those names carrying RTO 3722 is an RTO 3722 credential, including one in a trading name that has since ended.

Getting a replacement

Contact us as the issuing RTO, with your name as enrolled and your USI if you have it. A replacement is available on written application, and CHT applies a fee that increases once a course is more than twelve months old — confirm the current amount directly rather than relying on any published figure.

Before you do that, check your USI transcript. It records every unit you have completed with any Australian RTO since 1 January 2015, and it is usually faster to retrieve than a reissued document.

One exception worth knowing: a lost Victorian RSA certificate is replaced free by completing the three-yearly refresher through the Liquor Control Victoria Learning Hub. You should not pay anyone to replace it. If you have lost the certificate number itself, Liquor Control Victoria will provide it on request — it needs your full name, date of birth, when you completed the original course and the name of the training organisation. See RSA Melbourne and can I renew my RSA online in Victoria.

Your student file

An RTO must retain your records until three years after you completed or withdrew, in hard copy or electronic form, and must retain the assessment evidence for a training product for two years after you complete it. You can access your own file and the records held about you by making a written application to the RTO, and a time is then arranged for you to view them. Our material sets out an email, post and in-person route for that request — confirm the current address with melbourne@cht.edu.au before sending anything.

Using it elsewhere

Units you complete can be credit-transferred into a qualification at any RTO, which is what makes a short course a genuine starting point rather than a dead end. A Statement of Attainment for SITHFAB021 earned as a standalone RSA course is the same unit that sits core in SIT30722; SITXFSA005 from a food handling course is core in commercial cookery and an option in most of the rest. We verify evidence of equivalent prior completion, check the training-product requirements and any licensing or regulatory restrictions, and document the decision before granting credit. See ASQA’s credit-transfer guidance.

About us

Complete Hospitality Training (Vic) Pty Ltd, RTO 3722, CRICOS provider code 04242E, ABN 27 006 947 262. Level 3, 28 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne VIC 3000, and 410 Elizabeth Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010. Contact melbourne@cht.edu.au or +61 3 9654 1554.

We link to the relevant course and regulatory sources in this guide. Check those sources for current requirements, and confirm course availability, delivery, fees and entry requirements with us before enrolling.