Government Funding

Victoria Skills First Funding

Skills First Funding is the support funding for apprentice, a worker seeking retraining, a learner needing extra support or a regional student looking for a course in your local area. Under skills first provides you with more options for older worker to retain and upskill their economy, a commitment to high quality training, better support for disadvantaged students. There is plethora of government subsidised training places available to people who meet eligibility criteria.

Eligibility Criteria

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.

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Overseas students

If you are an overseas student, you are not eligible for Skills First training, but you may be able to get other government assistance. See the Australian Government Study Assist page for more information.

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 or eligible under the Job Trainer Fund (see below) 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. (Exemption for those under 25 years per Job Trainer below.)
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.