Australia's national teaching list has three columns and none of them is accreditation status — and the shortest program on it is shorter than the standard that governs it appears to allow

The national list of accredited Australian teacher education programs is a plain, open HTML table organised as one panel per provider. Each panel has exactly three columns:

Course | Duration (years) | Location

No accreditation status. No accreditation dates. No stage. No entry requirements. No fee. For a register that carries the word “accredited” in its title, that is a striking amount of absent information, and it means most of what people go to the list hoping to find has to come from elsewhere.

What it does carry — a duration figure, per program, for every entry — makes it more useful than most professional registers for the one question overseas graduates actually ask.

The body that publishes the list does not accredit anything

This is the first correction, and AITSL makes it itself:

“All Australian ITE programs are accredited by state and territory teacher regulatory authorities using these nationally agreed Standards and Procedures.”

“While AITSL is not a registered state authority, we can provide you with the national standards you must meet to become a registered teacher.”

“Registration is granted and managed by teacher regulatory authorities in each state and territory. It provides a person with a ‘statutory licence’ to perform the duties of a school teacher as defined in the particular jurisdiction.”

Eight authorities, one national list. The Teacher Quality Institute in the ACT, the NSW Education Standards Authority, the Teacher Registration Board of the Northern Territory, the Queensland College of Teachers, the Teachers Registration Board of South Australia, the Teachers Registration Board of Tasmania, the Victorian Institute of Teaching and the Teacher Registration Board of Western Australia. Their differences are compared in Australia’s teacher registration boards.

So: AITSL sets standards and publishes the list; a state or territory authority accredits your program and registers you. If you need a binding answer about either, the authority is where it comes from.

The duration column, the two-year rule, and the tension between them

The standard governing graduate-entry programs is Program Standard 1.4, and its opening words are the rule everyone quotes:

“Programs comprise at least 2 years of full-time equivalent (FTE) professional studies in education. They are structured so that a graduate undertakes a 4-year or longer FTE program(s) that leads to a higher education qualification(s) in one of the following configurations: a. a 3-year FTE undergraduate degree providing the required discipline knowledge, plus a 2-year FTE graduate entry professional qualification b. an integrated degree of at least 4 years FTE … c. combined degrees of at least 4 years FTE … d. other combinations of qualifications, proposed by the provider and approved by the teacher regulatory authority that enable alternative or flexible pathways into the teaching profession.”

Read the list’s duration column against that and something does not line up. There is no one-year program on the national list — that much is confirmed, and it is the single most useful thing to tell someone who has been offered a “one-year teaching qualification”. But the shortest entries are not two years either. A small number of graduate-entry master’s programs are listed at 1.5 years, and there is one entry at an unusual 2.12.

We are not going to reconcile that for AITSL. The list gives no definition of what “Duration (years)” counts — calendar length, full-time equivalent, or professional studies only — and Standard 1.4(d) leaves an explicit route for “other combinations … approved by the teacher regulatory authority”. Either could explain it. What we can say plainly is: if a program’s stated duration falls below the two years the standard describes, ask the provider and the state authority how it satisfies Standard 1.4, in writing, before enrolling. The relationship between duration and the four-year rule is unpacked in the four-year ITE requirement.

A related figure people misuse: graduate diplomas are almost absent from the Australian list. There is essentially one, and it is listed at two years — which is a useful corrective to anyone comparing an Australian graduate diploma against the much more common New Zealand one. That comparison is in the New Zealand approved ITE programmes and, at the qualification level, in a graduate diploma in education against a Master of Teaching.

The number that actually shapes your year: eighty days, or sixty

Standard 4.2 is where the professional experience requirement lives, and it carries both a hard number and a geographic condition:

“The professional experience components of the program … include at least 80 days in undergraduate and double-degree initial teacher education programs; and at least 60 days in graduate-entry programs”

“comprise supervised and assessed teaching practice undertaken over a substantial and sustained period that is mostly in Australia and mostly in a recognised school setting”

“Mostly in Australia” is the only in-country placement rule we found in any of the Australian accreditation standards we read, and it is hedged rather than absolute. It is also the fact most likely to reshape an overseas applicant’s plan, because sixty supervised days in Australian schools is not something that can be arranged remotely. The wider comparison across professions is in degrees with an embedded professional placement.

Stage one, stage two, and why neither is on the list

AITSL describes a two-stage accreditation process:

“Stage one applies when providers submit either: a new program for the first time [or] an accredited program that has changed significantly since it was last accredited. Stage one focuses on the provider’s plan for demonstrating impact.”

“Stage two applies to accredited programs that have not undergone significant change since they were last accredited. This stage focuses on monitoring and evaluating a program’s impact.”

Neither appears on the public list. A program in stage one and a program in stage two are indistinguishable to a prospective student. That is not necessarily wrong — both are accredited — but it does mean “stage” has no consumer-facing meaning and you should ignore anyone who quotes it at you.

Two more things AITSL publishes that the list does not show. “The teacher regulatory authority sets the length of accreditation for each program (no longer than 5 years)” — so accreditation expires, and the expiry is not visible. And accreditation is conditional on the program staying as accredited: “Accreditation is granted on the basis that the program will continue to be implemented as accredited by the teacher regulatory authority. Providers must notify the teacher regulatory authority about any changes”, after which the authority decides whether the change “is significant and requires a stage one accreditation application.”

Australian ITE accreditation is not tied to a cohort or commencement year. We looked; there is no such rule in the Standards and Procedures. That is a real difference from professions such as ICT and nursing, where the year you enrolled is the governing fact.

Which edition of the standards applies to you

The only version AITSL publishes today is marked “First published 2011 Revised 2015, 2018, 2019, 2025”, and its own page sets out a transition: “The 2025 update incorporates the 2023 addendum … Key dates for transition: From 1 January 2026 — 12 months of transition and familiarisation; 1 January 2027 — Implementation of the Revised Accreditation Standards and Procedures.”

So the document governing accreditation decisions today is a revised edition that does not take full effect until 2027. If the edition matters to you — and it will if a regulator elsewhere later asks what your program was accredited against — ask your provider and the state authority which version applied to your cohort, and keep the answer.

If you already teach somewhere else

The skills assessment is a migration instrument and AITSL is careful about its limits.

“Teachers migrating to Australia on a skilled migrant visa are required to complete a teacher skills assessment through AITSL. A skills assessment determines suitability for teacher occupations for Australia’s skilled migration program.”

“Is Australian teacher registration required for a skills assessment? No. You can submit an application without Australian teacher registration.”

“Is Australian teacher registration all I need to demonstrate suitability in a skills assessment? No. Applicants must submit the required evidence against the assessment criteria.”

Registration and assessment are separate in both directions, and neither implies the other. The academic threshold is stated plainly: “You must complete a minimum of 4 years full-time (or part-time equivalent) study at university level that results in qualification/s and includes a relevant initial teacher education qualification.”

AITSL assesses seven teaching occupations — primary, middle and secondary school teacher, special needs teacher, teacher of the hearing impaired, teacher of the sight impaired, and special education teachers not elsewhere classified. Published timing: “The majority of assessment-ready applications are completed within 4 weeks, some may take up to 6 weeks.” And it does not preview outcomes: “AITSL does not provide a pre-assessment service and cannot provide you with advice via email as to how your specific situation will be assessed.”

Fees effective 1 July 2025, as published on 3 September 2026: skills assessment AUD 1,154, appeal of an assessment outcome AUD 904, skilled employment statement AUD 255, with no GST charged. AITSL’s own site carries a notice that fees change from 7 September 2026 — so if you are reading this after that date, the figures above are historical and you should take current amounts from AITSL.

What to do

1. Take binding answers from your state or territory authority, not from AITSL and not from the list.
2. Read the duration figure, and if it is under two years, ask how the program satisfies Standard 1.4.
3. Plan for sixty supervised days in Australian schools if you enter through a graduate-entry program, and eighty in an undergraduate one.
4. Ignore “stage one” and “stage two” — they are not published per program and mean nothing to you.
5. Ask which edition of the standards applied to your cohort, given the 2027 implementation date.
6. Do not treat a skills assessment as registration, or registration as an assessment. Neither substitutes for the other.

What this page does not do

We do not reproduce the national list, we do not accredit or assess anything, and we cannot tell you whether a program is accredited — the list and the state authorities do that, and both change. Nothing here predicts an assessment, accreditation or registration outcome, and we do not write about visa requirements.