Industry News
Financial Incentive To Enrol For Cert IV Optical Dispensing
The Boosting Apprenticeship Commencements (BAC) program closed to new enrolments on June 30, 2022. A replacement program called The Australian Apprenticeships Priority List was launched on July 1, but it was only available for a limited number of accredited courses. Unfortunately, Certificate IV in Optical Dispensing was not included at the time of launch.
However, the list was revised in December and The Australasian College of Optical Dispensing (ACOD) announced that its course has been added, effective from January 1, 2023. ACOD understands that a small number of courses were removed from the list due to low participation rates, and an even smaller number of highly sought-after courses were added due to high participation rates in the BAC.
In summary, the new program includes the following parameters and benefits:
- Both new entrants and existing worker trainees can be eligible
- For employers: a 10% wage subsidy for two years, capped at $1500 per quarter (up to $6000 per year for two years, maxing out at $12000)
- For employees: a training support payment capped at $5000 for full-time and $2500 for part-time, paid in 4 equal installments of $625 over two years.
Like the BAC, these payments are linked to enrolment and are not dependent on completion. If a student leaves the course for any reason, no refund of payments made to either employer or employee up till the point of leaving the course is required.
In addition, there have been some changes made to the New Entrant hiring incentives. For New Entrant Trainees:
- Full-time: two equal payments of $1750 each are made at the 6 and 12-month marks ($3500 in total)
- Part-time: two equal payments of $875 each are made at the 6 and 12-month marks ($1750 in total)
Unlike the previous new entrant hiring incentives, these payments are not dependent on course completion, only on enrolment.
ACOD has received advice that if a trainee has left the course for any reason previously, it is possible for them to reengage and re-start a traineeship and be eligible for all benefits. However, they want to test this further with multiple AASNs before confirming.
While not as generous as the BAC program, ACOD believes this new program will significantly impact enrolments throughout the industry. In particular, ACOD has received feedback from employers in recent years that employees are reluctant to sign up for the course, sometimes because of concerns about the incidental costs they will incur during their course, such as needing to purchase a new computer. ACOD believes that the employee incentive will be highly attractive to many optical assistants and will make a difference for many in choosing to enroll.
