Opinion
Seven years after the Noonan review called for a substantial overhaul of the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF), its central redesign remains unfinished. While governments have found time for new institutions, agreements and consultations, the framework against which qualifications are designed and recognised still awaits its most important changes.
Released in October 2019, the AQF review challenged the rigid hierarchy and limited support for movement between qualifications. The Commonwealth accepted the review’s higher education recommendations and the aims of its VET recommendations, with the latter subject to further discussions with states and territories.
There has been progress. The National Microcredentials Framework arrived in 2022. The Undergraduate Certificate became permanent in 2025. Following the VET Qualification Reform Design Group (QRDG) recommendations, a tinkering of VET qualifications is now in effect, with revised training package rules took supporting qualifications designed around their purpose and coherent ‘application of skills and knowledge’ outcomes. The Australian Tertiary Education Commission (ATEC) is now developing national credit arrangements.
These are worthwhile changes. Three larger opportunities remain unfinished.
Qualifications that describe capability properly
The review proposed replacing the ten-level structure with a more flexible approach to qualification types, using eight bands of knowledge and six of skills. It challenged the assumption that knowledge, skills and their application belong on the same ladder.
The ten levels remain. The addition of a Vocational Degree at level seven is significant, but leaves the underlying structure intact.
A university graduate undertaking a trade certificate is acquiring a different capability. Describing that learning primarily through a lower qualification level does little to explain its value. Government should test and implement descriptors that make these differences intelligible. Changing descriptors alone will not fix funding inequities or the status of VET, but retaining a structure the review found inadequate is a poor starting point.
Credit that learners can rely on
The review sought broader recognition across qualifications, clearer treatment of short credentials and a prototype national credit-points system for voluntary adoption. The practical opportunity was to reduce the time and money learners spend repeating learning.
Existing credit arrangements already benefit many students. ATEC’s pending National Credit Recognition Framework is intended to be available for university implementation from January 2027. Its initial focus is credit for VET graduates entering higher education. Work to update the AQF Pathways Policy also addresses several review recommendations.
That is substantial activity, but a consistent national approach remains unfinished. Moving from university into VET, or combining work-based learning and short credentials, also deserves predictable recognition. Publishing a microcredentials definition does not itself make credit portable.
Providers should be required to maximise credit for prior study where students request it, including elective credit where subject-level matching is unnecessary, and justify refusals against the qualification’s overall requirements.
Ministers should enforce existing transparency obligations and publish evidence of time and fees saved through credit.
Accountability for completing the reform
The review proposed ongoing AQF governance spanning schools, VET and higher education, with responsibility for implementation and future revision.
The 2022 transfer of skills and training to the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR) placed another departmental boundary between VET and higher education. Governments advocating seamless learner pathways should explain how dividing responsibility for those pathways helps deliver the integrated qualifications framework proposed in 2019.
The AQF website still describes departmental management with states and territories and expert bodies convened as required. ATEC and its Tertiary System Advisory Council provide new machinery for tertiary coordination. Their work matters, but it should also make explicit how the outstanding AQF redesign will be resolved, including its relationship with school qualifications.
The National Skills Taxonomy began consultation in June 2024, yet its design paper is not due until March 2027. Nearly three years to reach another design milestone! Yes, mapping skills across education and employment is a formidable, continually evolving task, but it must not become another reason to postpone overdue AQF reform and practical credit recognition.
The missing public commitment is a clear timetable for completing, modifying or rejecting the unfinished AQF review recommendations, with reasons and an accountable owner for each decision. Ministers could assign that responsibility through existing institutions. Another organisation is unnecessary if the current ones have the authority to deliver.
Seven years is ample time to explain which parts of the review governments intend to implement. Publish the decisions, fund the transition and report on whether learners can actually move between qualifications without unnecessary repetition. ATEC creates further opportunities to finish the work. Governments should now be judged on the changes students experience.
Phill Bevan is a veteran adult educator and advisor to Australia’s vocational education and training sector.