CRICOS/ELICOS compliance

In some cases, registered training organisations (RTOs) may enrol students who are temporarily visiting Australia on certain visas, other than study visas. However, some visas include restrictions on training. Further information is also available from the Department of Home Affairs.

Registered training providers are able to offer exempt supplementary courses to overseas students without registering the courses on CRICOS. Exempt courses includes first aid, infection control, construction white cards, and responsible service of alcohol courses. More information.

ASQA can receive complaints about organisations providing VET and/or English language education to overseas students on student visas. These organisations are referred to as Commonwealth Register of Institutions and Courses for Overseas Students (CRICOS) providers.

ASQA considers complaints about CRICOS providers where the provider is alleged to have breached the required standards, and failed to provide quality training and assessment. ASQA will use this information (and other data) to determine whether further regulatory scrutiny of providers is needed.

ASQA does not act as a consumer advocate and is not able to resolve disputes between students and their providers.

The most effective and timely way to resolve complaints, is through your provider’s complaints and appeals process. Providers that offer courses to domestic and overseas students are required to have a complaints process in place that ensures students’ complaints are managed effectively and efficiently. 

Overseas students can make complaints to the Overseas Students Ombudsman, or by another agency. For more information, see Complaints.

The Education Services for Overseas Students (ESOS) Act 2000 requires Commonwealth Register of Institutions and Courses for Overseas Students (CRICOS) and English Language Intensive Courses for Overseas Students (ELICOS) providers to keep student assessment records for a minimum of two years.

In addition, an registered training organisation (RTO) is required to securely retain, and be able to produce in full at performance assessment (audit) if requested to do so, all completed student assessment items for each student for a period of six months from the date on which the judgement of competence for the student has been made.

Completed student assessment items include the actual piece(s) of work completed by a student or evidence of that work, including evidence collected for a Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) process. An assessor’s completed marking guide, criteria, and observation checklist for each student may be sufficient where it is not possible to retain the student’s actual work. However, the retained evidence must have enough detail to demonstrate the assessor’s judgement of the student’s performance against the standard required.

Qualifications, courses or units of competency that lead to regulated/licensed outcomes may also impose specific records retention requirements. RTOs should refer to specific regulatory requirements relating to that delivery.

No, an RTO that is not a CRICOS-registered provider cannot deliver courses to an international student who has a Confirmation of Enrolment (COE) from another provider.

It is a breach of the Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000 (ESOS Act) for any provider to deliver courses to an overseas student on a student visa unless the provider is registered to deliver the course to overseas students at that location.

An overseas student in Australia on a student visa is permitted to undertake additional study (that is, a course of education or training) at the same time as the principal course for which they hold a student visa. However, any course undertaken by a student visa holder must be registered on CRICOS. Only a CRICOS registered provider can deliver courses to overseas students on student visas.

A student on a student visa who is seeking to undertake additional study should be aware of the requirements of their student visa and the need to:

• remain enrolled in a registered course
• achieve satisfactory course attendance, and
• progress in their principal course of study.

The Department of Immigration and Border Protection requires all overseas students to have health insurance while in Australia.

It is not compulsory for the registered training organisation (RTO) to provide students with Overseas Student Health Cover (OSHC); however, all providers should ensure that their students have this cover.

Further information is available from the Department of Immigration and Border Protection.

Education Services for Overseas Students (ESOS) providers must ensure their course duration is based on full-time study – this is a minimum of 20 scheduled course contact hours a week.  The registered course duration must be appropriate for your student cohort to ensure they can complete the course, include holiday periods during the course and work-based training.

Holiday periods cannot be included at the start or end of the registered course duration – i.e.  exceeding the time students need to complete the course requirements.

The required staff-to-student ratio is indicated in Standard 14 of the National Code 2018, which states:

‘The registered provider must have and implement policies and procedures to ensure its staffing resources are adequate and have the capabilities as required by the quality assurance framework applying to the course. Where the course provided by the registered provider is not subject to an appropriate quality assurance framework, the registered provider must have and implement appropriate documented policies and processes for the recruitment, induction, performance assessment and ongoing development of members of staff involved with the recruitment or delivery of education or client services to students.’

The staff-to-student ratio for the teaching of ELICOS should not exceed 1:18 per class.

A CRICOS provider must comply at all times with the:

• Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000 (ESOS Act)
• Education Services for Overseas Students Regulations 2019, and
• National Code of Practice for Providers of Education and Training to Overseas Students 2018.

In addition:

• if offering vocational education and training (VET) courses, the provider must comply with the VET Quality Framework, and
• if offering English Language Intensive Courses for Overseas Students (ELICOS), the provider must comply with the ELICOS National Standards.

ASQA has recently published a new fact sheet for CRICOS providers delivering VET courses to assist them to understand the requirements of the National Code in relation to student attendance and course progress.

Providers are able to register explicit units, short courses and skill sets for delivery to overseas students on CRICOS, however they will not appear on PRISMS or the public CRICOS register. Students are unable to search CRICOS for individual units, but may enrol with providers who have the unit approved for CRICOS.

CRICOS providers must recruit responsibly and ensure that overseas students are appropriately qualified for the course they are seeking to complete. Providers must ensure overseas students have sufficient English language proficiency, educational qualifications and/or work experience to enrol in the course.

Registered providers must also have and implement a documented policy for assessing that overseas students’ English language proficiency, educational qualifications or work experience is sufficient to enter a course. All students need to have sufficient language proficiency to allow then to undertake the course and to complete the required assessment.

If there is no minimum English language proficiency required, for example in an ELICOS course, the provider does not need a process for assessing this. However registered providers should consider having literacy requirements in the international student’s first language.

ASQA’s role does not include assisting students to seek refunds of course fees. Current, former or prospective overseas student enrolled with a private training provider in Australia can seek help with fees and refunds from the Overseas Students Ombudsman.