The Education Wallet program includes:

1. The NSW Learner Passport: a platform for secondary students to reflect on their strengths, articulate their passions and imagine their future. Currently being developed, it will provide a single personalised site where students can showcase their achievements, consider possibilities, set goals and build future pathways with the support of their family, their school and community.

2. Verifiable Educational Credentials: a secure way of enabling secondary students to digitally ‘carry’ their educational records and achievements from their teenage years into their twenties, which they can continue to add to, and build on, throughout their adult lives.

3. Skills Compare: an online platform where prospective vocational education and training (VET) students can discover and compare subsidised courses and the registered training organisations that deliver them. Through Skills Compare, students will be able to make more informed decisions about their training to achieve strong educational and employment outcomes.

1. NSW Learner Passport

The ‘learner passport’ is currently being developed and is each student’s passport into their future. It will provide a single site where students will build online profiles to showcase their strengths, interests and activities, both academic and extra-curricular. It will roll out to Years 9 to 12 in 2023 and 2024.

It is intended that each student will be supported when building and adding to their passport, so that the breadth of their strengths and activities is kept up-to-date in a single place.

This includes support at school and outside of school:

• at school support involves teachers, careers advisors, and apprenticeship and training officers
• outside of school support involves family, community groups and others.

Telling each student’s story

The learner passport will help students reflect on and articulate their strengths, their achievements and capabilities, and start to build their story. They will also be able to share curated views of their learner passport when applying for further education and training, or with potential employees.

This holistic view of a student’s story will include:

• formal educational qualifications obtained at school
• extra-curricular and sporting involvement and achievements
• work experience and volunteering activities
• caring responsibilities within the home
• personal interests and passions.

Value through collaborative co-design

The learner passport is being co-designed in partnership with the Department of Customer Service, TAFE, New South Wales Education Standards Authority (NESA), Catholic Schools NSW and the Association of Independent Schools.

Throughout its development, the Education Wallet team is consulting and collaborating with students and school staff, further education and training providers, and community organisations and businesses, to ensure it provides value and utility to all of our stakeholders.

Once released to all secondary students this year, it is planned that Vocational Education and Training (VET) and tertiary qualifications will also be included.

2. Verifiable Educational Credentials

The ‘verifiable educational credentials’ initiative is part of a larger program enabling credentials gained by NSW citizens to be digitised using industry-recognised technical standards. By using these standards, the credentials that young people may earn from the department, such as the Higher School Certificate or completion of TAFE courses, will travel with each individual, beyond school.

This initiative will permit graduates to easily and securely store their qualifications, and share them with others, for example, employers or further education providers when needed, as lifelong learners.

Third parties will be able to trust that these credentials are valid, without the administrative burden of having to verify them separately.

3. Skills Compare

Skills Compare helps prospective Vocational Education and Training (VET) students make informed choices about their training, including selection of courses and training providers. Through Skills Compare, school leavers, as well as those already in the workforce looking to upskill or reskill, have access to information about:

• full and part qualifications on offer that are nearby, subsidised and will lead them to their desired career outcome
• performance outcomes being delivered by Skills NSW Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) including student satisfaction ratings, employment outcomes and proportion of students that finished their courses with the RTO
• subsidised program types on offer such as apprenticeships and traineeships
• qualification fees based on student eligibility.

Skills Compare also gives RTOs a better understanding of their own performance relative to their peers and thereby encourage continuous quality improvement.

Where to next?

The NSW Department of Education is working on upcoming enhancements to Skills Compare to support students through their training journey. This includes:

• a course comparison feature that informs students of expected training outcomes upon completion of a course
• linkages with Careers NSW and the Learner Passport.

The department will continue to test Skills Compare with prospective students before each enhancement to ensure the tool remains responsive to student needs.

Learn more

• If you have any questions, or would like more information on the NSW Learner Passport, please email the team at learnerpassport@det.nsw.edu.au and a team member will get in touch.