What are the Skills SA Student Support Standards?
Skills SA is committed to the wellbeing of all VET students undertaking subsidised training in South Australia. As a training provider delivering subsidised VET training, you play an important role in this space. It’s important you have support systems in place that students know about and can access whenever they need them.
There are six Skills SA Student Support Standards you need to meet. Each Standard is explained in more detail below.
Student Support Standards
Standard 1: Upfront assessment of need (UAN)
Your UAN procedure explains how the published UAN Guidelines are implemented consistently within your organisation.
The UAN involves assessing a prospective student’s suitability for a course, any support needs they may have, and their literacy and numeracy skills, before you enrol them. It helps you look at every student as an individual so that you can offer them the support they need, when they need it, including any foundation skills training they might require. It’s mandatory to conduct the UAN for all students undertaking subsidised training in South Australia.
Standard 2: Understanding and supporting South Australian students
You have an up-to-date understanding of your South Australian student group/s. You offer flexible training and assessment that works for your students. This reduces the need for individual adjustments.
It’s important that you understand the demographics of your South Australian students and can identify any systemic barriers or support needs they have. By doing so you can develop flexible approaches to training delivery, scheduling, and assessment that reduce the need to make individual adjustments.
Standard 3: Developing and delivering individual supports
You recognise and address the individual support needs of students.
Even with flexible approaches in place that can accommodate a wide range of student needs, there’ll be times when a student needs individual support. Along with any in-house support you provide, it's important you work closely with your Success and Wellbeing Services (SWS) provider.
Standard 4: Disability access
You make sure support is available for students with disability. You have processes in place whether or not you currently have students with disability.
You must have a process to identify disability and implement appropriate supports. You also need to understand your responsibilities under the Disability Standards for Education.
Standard 5: Professional development
Every year you complete professional development to address the specific support needs of your students in South Australia. This includes any mandatory professional development required by Skills SA.
Your staff need to complete professional development (PD) every year to help you address the specific barriers and support needs of your South Australian students.
Learner mental health and neurodiversity are increasing challenges facing training providers today. This has been highlighted by feedback from training providers, SWS providers, students, and across Governments at the state and national levels.
By 1 June 2027, you must meet mandatory PD requirements in:
- Mental Health: trauma-informed practice
- Neurodivergence
- Universal Design for Learning, or inclusive teaching
These new mandatory requirements build on the requirements from 2025-26.
There are different PD requirements for existing and new RTOs.
- If you're an existing RTO (you've completed a self-assessment before), click on the link for existing RTOs below.
- If you're a new RTO (you haven't completed a self-assessment before), click on the link for new RTOs below.
Standard 6: Procedures
You have procedures that demonstrate compliance with each Support Standard.
It’s important you have documented policies, procedures, and/or work instructions in place, so new and existing staff understand what they need to do. It’s also important you monitor these documents regularly, update them when needed, and promote the processes they describe to students, where it’s relevant to do so.
What is the organisational self-assessment form?
The organisational self-assessment form is a template that allows you to meet the six Skills SA Student Support Standards. Each Standard has its own section in the form, and each section is made up of one or more questions that you'll need to respond to.
In February 2025, Skills SA updated the self-assessment form based on stakeholder feedback, to make it easier to understand and to use. The form has been updated again in June 2026 to include additional feedback obtained over the past 12 months. The key changes are:
- Support Standard 1 has been reduced from 14 questions to three, and the other Support Standards have been revised
- The guidance on how to respond to each question in the form has been made clearer
- The 'Before You Begin' sections for each Support Standard have been revised and streamlined. Helpful resources have been moved to their own web page, available here
- The mandatory professional development requirements have been updated for 2026-27.
You can download the new form from the link below. Please note, there is a different version of the form for new training providers. If you have recently signed a Funded Activities Agreement (FAA) and have not completed a self-assessment form before, you will receive the correct version to fill out via email.
New RTOs must not use the form available via the link below.
If you have any questions about which form to use, email purchaseplanningandstrategy@sa.gov.au
What is the Self-Assessment process?
The self-assessment process takes place every 12 months. You need a Skills SA-approved self-assessment to:
- enter into a new Success and Wellbeing Services (SWS) Partnership Agreement
- renew an existing SWS Partnership Agreement.
If you’re a new training provider who’s recently signed an FAA, you need to meet these requirements before you open training accounts. If you’re an existing training provider, you must maintain UAN compliance and renegotiate your SWS Partnership Agreement/s each year, to make sure there’s no break in SWS coverage.
The steps in the self-assessment process are described in more detail below.
The steps in the process are:
Step 1 – Download the self-assessment form
You need to submit your self-assessment for review at least one month before your approval period expires. This is to allow time for revision and resubmission (where needed). Your next submission date will be included in your most recent self-assessment approval email. If you aren't sure when you need to submit your next self-assessment, email purchaseplanningandstrategy@sa.gov.au
As a courtesy, Skills SA may send you a reminder email around two months before your self-assessment approval period expires, but it remains your responsibility to ensure you submit your self-assessment by the submission date.
Always download the self-assessment form from the Skills SA website to ensure you have the latest version.
Step 2 – Fill in the form
Make sure you action any feedback you received in your last self-assessment.
As you fill out the form, you may wish to review the useful resources and additional guidance for each Support Standard, available here.
We aren’t looking for you to cut and paste from your policies or processes, or from Skills SA guidelines. We don’t need you to submit policies, procedures, or other documents unless we ask for them.
Instead, the idea is for you to describe how and why you put your processes into action.
Anyone within your organisation can fill in the self-assessment form. However, before you email the form to Skills SA, it needs to be approved by your contract representative or accountable officer as listed in your Funded Activities Annexure – STL Delivery.
Step 3 – Email the form to Skills SA for approval
Email the form to purchaseplanningandstrategy@sa.gov.au
Don’t convert your completed form to PDF before sending it.
A Skills SA assessor will be assigned to review your submission and will email you with their review outcome, typically within 10 working days.
The Skills SA assessor may provisionally approve your submission, or they may ask you to resubmit.
Where your self-assessment has thoroughly met the student support standards, we may choose to approve your compliance period for longer than the typical 12 months. This means you won’t have to submit another self-assessment until the date we specify. However, you will need to ensure you maintain your SWS Partnership Agreement/s each year, to ensure there’s no break in SWS coverage.
Step 4 – Resubmit the form (if required)
Where the Skills SA assessor asks you to resubmit, follow the instructions and timeframes they give you in their email.
You may be asked to resubmit more than once.
Step 5 – Negotiate an SWS Partnership Agreement
Once Skills SA has provisionally approved your self-assessment, it’s up to you to liaise with and negotiate an SWS Partnership Agreement with your nominated SWS provider/s.
You can enter into agreements with as many SWS providers as you wish, but each one requires you to sign a separate Partnership Agreement.
Step 6 – Email your signed SWS Partnership Agreement to Skills SA
Once both you and your SWS provider have signed the SWS Partnership Agreement, email a PDF copy to Skills SA at purchaseplanningandstrategy@sa.gov.au
You’ll receive an email in response confirming your provisional approval has been finalised, which completes the self-assessment process.
We’ll help you along the way
If you have any questions about the Self-Assessment process, you can contact us via email at purchaseplanningandstrategy@sa.gov.au