Government Subsidised Training

The Skills First Program

1. The Skills First Program

Not everyone can do Skills First training. Your eligibility depends on lots of things, including:

• your age
• what training you’ve done before or are doing now
• when you did this training

If you think you are eligible, please contact us before you apply for a course. We will confirm your eligibility and check if there’s a Skills First place available.

Citizenship

To be eligible for Skills First training, you must be:

• an Australian citizen, or
• an Australian permanent resident, or
• a New Zealand citizen

Asylum seekers

If you are an asylum seeker, you may be eligible under the Asylum seeker VET program.

Age

Skills First prioritises training for young people (under 20), Apprenticeships and Foundation Skills, and otherwise requires students do progressively higher qualifications to be eligible.

If you are under 20 years old you can do Skills First training at any level .

If you are 20 years or over, you can usually only do Skills First training at a higher level than any qualification you already have. For example, if you have a Certificate III, you can’t do a subsidised Certificate II course.

You can also do Skills First training in skill sets. These are accredited short courses to help with quick and flexible training for skills shortages and workforce demands. When you do a skill set, your age and what level of qualification you already have doesn’t affect whether you are eligible.

How much Skills First training can I do?

There are also limits on how much Skills First training you can do. The limits are:

• You can’t start* more than 2 qualifications in a year
• You can’t start* more than 2 skill sets in a year
• You can’t do more than 2 Skills First qualifications or skill sets at the same time
• If you’ve already started* up to two government-subsidised qualifications at the same level in your lifetime you can’t do another Skills First qualification at that level

These limits encourage you to make informed decisions about your training and employment opportunities, and finish your training.

*This includes courses you start but don’t finish.