Terms and Conditions

Terms and Conditions

Benchmarque Group deliver a range of nationally accredited courses and unit of competency programs. These are collectively referred to as our “courses”.

The following terms and conditions apply to all completed registrations whether undertaken by the student, or third party on behalf of a student completing a course with Benchmarque Group.

Access and Equity

Benchmarque Group will ensure every attempt is made to allow access to our courses for every individual regardless of disability and in accordance with equal opportunity legislation.

Benchmarque Group also ensures that at all times customers are treated in an ethical and responsible manner that is consistent with the principles of social justice. If you have any concerns or particular requirements, for example assistance with disability, numeracy, or literacy, please contact Benchmarque Group directly.

Additional Fees & Charges

While studying at Benchmarque Group, you may need to pay additional fees and charges. These include situations like moving enrolment from one workshop to another, not attending a workshop and needing to rebook another date, or requesting an assessment extension.

Please note that these are subject to change.

Workshop Change Fees:

To make changes to your workshop date, you must pay a non-refundable fee.

If your workshop contains pre-requisite learning, it is a requirement that this is completed and assessed before you can attend your scheduled workshop. If you do not complete your pre-requisite learning in time for the workshop, you may be required to pay further fees to reschedule.

Assessment Extensions Fees:

How long do I have to complete the assessment?

If your course involves assessments, the total time is 12 months. The time is calculated from when you are provided online access to your assessment. Within the accessIQ platform, students will be provided an initial 6 months to complete and submit all required assessment activities. Friendly email reminders will be sent to students to ensure an assessment is completed on time. After the 6 months, students can request up to a maximum of 2 extensions, each for 90 days. If requesting a second extension, the request must be in writing and may involve an associated fee.

Fee Schedule

* 21+ days prior to workshop: Fees are waived to move your workshop ($0)
** No shows: No refund on the course fees

Cancellation, Refund and Transfer

Biosecurity Amendment

In January 2020, the Australian government amended the national Biosecurity Act to include COVID-19 as a quarantinable disease. In light of the increasing infection rates of COVID-19 (Novel Coronavirus 2019) in the community, Benchmarque Group is experiencing course cancellations.

If Benchmarque Group or partner organisations finds it necessary to cancel or postpone a course as a result of COVID-19 concerns, all students will retain their registration and alternative arrangements will be made to transfer the registration to an alternative course. In this instance, no refund will be provided.

Benchmarque Group cancellation and refund policy does not cover disinclination to attend a course, where a student is disinclined to attend for reasons associated with biosecurity. In some instances, we are happy to support reasonable requests for refunds in writing.

Benchmarque Group reserves the right to cancel a course without notice, at its discretion.

If a student cancels their registration for reasons other than detailed in the above Biosecurity Amendment clause; they will need to provide notice in writing prior to the commencement of the course. Should notification be received 14 days or more prior to the course commencing, Benchmarque Group will refund 90% of your course fee. Should notification be received less than 14 days prior to the course commencing, no refund will be provided.

Online Learning

If a student cancels their registration and is yet to commence the online activity, a 90% refund will be provided. Once assessments have been commenced and/or assessed, students will be eligible for a maximum 25% refund of the fee paid at the time of registration. If cancelled, completed assessments will remain on the student’s console and any outstanding assessments will be removed. In the event that a student wishes to recommence a cancel course, the full fee will apply.

Transfers

If a student is unable to attend a course, a substitute student may take their place at no additional cost but must complete an enrolment form prior to attending. Enrolled students who fail to attend without notification will not be entitled to a refund.

Transfers to other courses can be organised where appropriate. Please provide notice in writing at least 14 days prior to the commencement of the course to allow time for transfer.

Benchmarque Group will make appropriate financial arrangements to guarantee the refund of course fees when:

• the course is cancelled or discontinued, with or without notice; or
• the customer has an acceptable reason for discontinuing the course (e.g. medical).

Alternatively, a substitute course or date may be offered and mutually agreed on.

If for any reason Benchmarque Group finds it necessary to cancel a course and a suitable transfer to an alternative course cannot be made, you will receive a full refund of fees paid.

Benchmarque Group reserves the right to cancel a course without notice, at its discretion. No additional refund will be provided in addition to course fee regardless of circumstances.

Certificates

On the successful completion of your course, Benchmarque Group will issue you with either a qualification, statement of attainment, or certificate of attendance depending on the course you have completed. This will include your name, completion date, the name of the qualification, any unit of competency or course achieved and a unique certificate identification number.

The certificates issued by Benchmarque Group contain appropriate levels of security to ensure that they cannot be fraudulently copied.

Should you fail to meet the minimum requirements of a course, you will be provided with two (2) additional opportunities to re-submit assessment work, submit additional evidence, or demonstrate competence as part of your course fee. Additional opportunities remain at the discretion of the individual facilitator or program manager.

Nationally recognised qualifications are issued when you are deemed competent in a course that is recognised throughout Australia. Nationally recognised statements of attainment are issued when you are competent in units of competency, but less than the amount for a full qualification. Certificates of attendance are issued for industry training that is useful for your employment, but not part of the nationally recognised training system. Qualifications and statements of attainment issued by Benchmarque Group are recognised throughout Australia by other Registered Training Organisations, so, if you choose to undertake further course, your training with us may provide you with recognised prior learning into other course.

Complaints and Assessment Appeals

All students, prospective students, trainers, stakeholders who engage with Benchmarque Group have the right to lodge complaints about the service received. Additionally, all students undertaking courses or training programs offered by Benchmarque Group retain have the right to lodge appeals against decisions made by Benchmarque Group assessors. A full copy of our Complaints and Assessment Appeals Policy can be found here.

Continuous Professional Development and Industry Endorsement

Courses delivered by Benchmarque Group may be endorsed by professional bodies and industry specific points or recognition may be awarded in some circumstances. In the event that your course is endorsed to achieve points or recognition, you must meet the minimum required activity as determined by the endorsing authority.

Cooling off Period

A cooling off period is a safeguard designed to give students the opportunity to change their mind about a purchase or agreement they have made. Cooling off periods refer to a specified time frame during which a consumer can legally withdraw from a contract or agreement with little or no penalty.

Benchmarque Group provides students with a 3-day cooling off period. This means that if a student accepts an offer of a place and pays Benchmarque Group the relevant course fees before the course start date, and then changes their mind (for any reason), a full refund of course fees paid to date will be provided. Notification of cancellation must be in writing.Course Participation

Your commencement in the course you have enrolled in is dependent upon:

• sufficient enrolments in the course
• course pre-requisite/s being met
• availability of places in the course
• arriving at the venue at least 15 minutes prior to course commencement and anyone more than 30 minutes late may not be accepted into the course.

Course Confirmation

Along with your booking confirmation, you may receive a tax invoice for your course. The tax invoice acts as a confirmation of the receipt of your registration. This invoice will indicate the total cost required for participation; full payment of the tax invoice is required to guarantee your participation in the course.

A confirmation email will be sent to the email address used at the time of registration. Reminder SMS text messages will also be sent where considered appropriate. It remains the responsibility of the student to attend the course.

Course Participation

Your commencement in the course you have enrolled in is dependent upon:

• sufficient enrolments in the course
• course pre-requisite/s being met
• availability of places in the course
• arriving at the venue at least 15 minutes prior to course commencement and anyone more than 30 minutes late may not be accepted into the course.

Feedback

As part of our continuous improvement program, we constantly seek feedback about the courses, training and services we provide. Evaluation forms will be provided for you to complete at the conclusion of your course. In addition, you may be randomly requested to provide feedback at any stage during or after your participation. The aim of these evaluations is to allow you, the student to have an input into the workings of Benchmarque Group and to help us achieve a better and more efficient service.

Fee Protection

In some circumstances, Benchmarque Group may collect a fee in excess of $1500 prior to a student commencing study.

To protect the student fee, Benchmarque Group holds an unconditional financial guarantee from the ANZ Bank, for an amount that has been determined to be in excess of the total amount of prepaid fees held by Benchmarque Group in excess of the threshold prepaid fee amount for each student for services to be provided.

Image Consent

Benchmarque Group Pty Limited and accessIQ Pty Limited will from time to time take photographs of students and courses for the purposes of advertising, media publicity, publication, general display or for any other business purposes in whole or in part, including but not limited to publication on web sites. Your permission will be confirmed verbally on the day of training and images will be removed at any time on request.

Privacy Notice

As a registered training organisation (RTO), we collect your personal information so we can process and manage your course enrolment. We use your personal information to enable us to deliver courses to you, and otherwise, as needed, to comply with our obligations as an RTO.

We are required by law under the National Vocational Education and Training Regulator Act 2011 (Cth) to disclose the personal information we collect about you to the National VET Data Collection kept by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research Ltd (NCVER). The NCVER is responsible for collecting, managing, analysing and communicating research and statistics about the Australian VET sector.

We are also authorised by to disclose your personal information to the relevant state or territory training authority.

The NCVER will collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information in accordance with the law, including the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the NVETR Act. Your personal information may be used and disclosed by NCVER for purposes that include populating authenticated VET transcripts; administration of VET; facilitation of statistics and research relating to education, including surveys and data linkage; and understanding the VET market.

The NCVER is authorised to disclose information to the Australian Government Department of Education, Skills and Employment (DESE), Commonwealth authorities, State and Territory authorities (other than registered training organisations) that deal with matters relating to VET and VET regulators for the purposes of those bodies, including to enable:

• administration of VET, including program administration, regulation, monitoring and evaluation
• facilitation of statistics and research relating to education, including surveys and data linkage
• understanding how the VET market operates, for policy, workforce planning and consumer information.

The NCVER may also disclose personal information to persons engaged by NCVER to conduct research on NCVER’s behalf.

The NCVER does not intend to disclose your personal information to any overseas recipients.

For more information about how the NCVER will handle your personal information please refer to the NCVER’s Privacy Policy at www.ncver.edu.au/privacy.

DESE is authorised by law, including the Privacy Act and the NVETR Act, to collect, use and disclose your personal information to fulfil specified functions and activities. For more information about how the DESE will handle your personal information, please refer to the DESE VET Privacy Notice at https://www.dese.gov.au/national-vet-data/vet-privacy-notice.

You may receive a student survey which may be run by a government department or an NCVER employee, agent, third-party contractor or another authorised agency. Please note you may opt out of the survey at the time of being contacted.

At any time, you may contact Benchmarque Group to:

• request access to your personal information
• correct your personal information
• make a complaint about how your personal information has been handled
• ask a question about this Privacy Notice

Record Keeping and Access to Records

Benchmarque Group will keep a record of your completion and result in a secure, confidential manner, including copies of any relevant qualifications, statements of attainment or certificates of attendance you have obtained in line with the storage requirements detailed by the Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA).

As the student, you are able to access this information at any time on request. When you contact Benchmarque Group, you will be required to establish your identity by answering some questions regarding your original registration. Please allow up to five (5) working days for Benchmarque Group to retrieve your documents from our archive system.

Revocation of a Qualification or Statement of Attainment

Benchmarque Group may revoke a qualification or statement of attainment should it be deemed that it was obtained as a result of misleading or deceptive conduct, issued in error by Benchmarque Group, or as directed by ASQA.

Qualifications or statements of attainment may also be revoked if the participant is unable to provide full payment for the completed course, on the basis that all reasonable efforts have been made to receipt payment. A final notice of revocation will be issued, providing a period of fourteen (14) days to remit payment for the full amount.

Transfers

If a student is unable to attend a course, a substitute student may take their place at no additional cost but must complete an enrolment form prior to attending. Enrolled students who fail to attend without notification will not be entitled to a refund.

Transfers to other courses can be organised where appropriate. Please provide notice in writing at least 14 days prior to the commencement of the course to allow time for transfer.

Benchmarque Group will make appropriate financial arrangements to guarantee the refund of course fees when:

• the course is cancelled or discontinued, with or without notice; or
• the customer has an acceptable reason for discontinuing the course (e.g. medical).

Alternatively, a substitute course or date may be offered and mutually agreed on.

If for any reason Benchmarque Group finds it necessary to cancel a course and a suitable transfer to an alternative course cannot be made, you will receive a full refund of fees paid.

Benchmarque Group reserves the right to cancel a course without notice, at its discretion. No additional refund will be provided in addition to course fee regardless of circumstances.

Unique Student Identifiers

A Unique Student Identifier or USI is a reference number issued by the Australian Government to all students completing nationally accredited training. A USI is made up of 10 numbers and letters that:

• creates a secure online record of your recognised training and qualifications gained in Australia, even from different training organisations
• will give you access to your training records and transcripts
• can be accessed online, anytime and anywhere
• is free and easy to create and
• stays with you for life.

Benchmarque Group are obligated by law to collect USI’s to all students completing accredited training and cannot issue a certificate or statement of attainment until the student has a valid USI.

Acceptance

When you enrol and commence your study with Benchmarque Group, you are accepting the terms and conditions as detailed above.

Should you have any questions or queries related to these terms and conditions, please contact us on 1300 855 568.