Under the Lisbon Recognition Convention (ratified by Australia in 2002) Australia has an international obligation to promote the widespread use of the Diploma Supplement by Australian tertiary institutions.
The Diploma Supplement
is a European initiative which aims to describe a higher education qualification in an easily understandable way and relate it to the higher education system within which it was issued.
The Diploma Supplement is a valuable tool for achieving transparency, recognition and mobility of qualifications. There is widespread and increasing use of the Diploma Supplement across Europe, much of which is driven by students and other stakeholders, who recognise its value in describing qualifications in a way that is clear to potential employers and other higher education institutions.
Diploma Supplement: State of Implementation in Europe 2005 (pdf 61kb or rtf 1023kb)
This information sheet outlines the state of implementation of the Diploma Supplement in Europe as at December 2005.
The Diploma Supplement and Australia
The implementation of the Diploma Supplement in Australia would mean Australian awards are more likely to be well understood internationally, increasing Australian graduates' international mobility for further study or employment purposes and sharpening further Australia's competitiveness in the international education export market.
Adoption of the Diploma Supplement in Australia would also support the achievement of the common goal agreed to by Ministers attending the Asia-Pacific Education Ministers’ Meeting in April 2006, and expressed in the Brisbane Communique, of increasing greater student and academic mobility and transferability of qualifications.
The communique
of the Asia-Pacific Education Ministers’ meeting.
In 2002, in recognition of the value of the Diploma Supplement, DEEWR funded a pilot project to identify the costs and implications of issuing the Diploma Supplement. This pilot was undertaken by a small number of Australian higher education institutions.
Diploma Supplement: Outcomes of DEST activities (pdf 65kb or rtf 992kb)
In 2005, DEEWR commissioned a study to review the outcomes of the 2002 pilot project. This paper details the findings of that consultancy.
Diploma Supplement Project
On 7 September 2006 the Hon Julie Bishop, Minister for Education, Science and Training, announced that the Australian Government would provide $400,000 for a consortium of universities to develop a single agreed template for an Australian Diploma Supplement.
The successful consortium, announced on 10 January 2007, represents 14 universities led by the University of New England, the Australian National University and the University of Melbourne. Other consortium members are:
- Charles Sturt University;
- Edith Cowan University;
- Griffith University;
- Queensland University of Technology;
- Swinburne University of Technology;
- The University of New South Wales;
- The University of Sydney;
- The University of Canberra;
- The University of Newcastle;
- The University of South Australia; and
- Victoria University.
The project aims to develop an agreed template for an Australian Diploma Supplement and to make recommendations on detailed implementation and management strategies. It is envisaged that the Diploma Supplement will take the form of documentation issued to graduates by awarding institutions in addition to the degree or diploma and will describe the nature, context, content and status of a graduate’s qualification.
A national workshop with all universities and Table B institutions was held in Melbourne on 3 May 2007. It included plenary discussion as well as discussion in breakout groups and enabled the Project Team to share its initial thinking with institutions and to gain input on key issues, particularly in relation to the purposes that an Australian Diploma Supplement could serve and the possible content of the Diploma Supplement.
The Proposal for an Australian Higher Education Graduation Statement was published on 2 May 2008. Key recommendations from the report are that the Australian Diploma Supplement be referred to as the Australian Higher Education Graduation Statement, that the Graduation Statement should be provided without cost to all higher education graduates and that implementation in Australian universities should be on a voluntary basis commencing as soon as practicable in 2008. To ensure national consistency, Graduation Statements should be presented in a uniform sequence by all higher education institutions.
The consortium's final report is available.
Last Modified: Thursday 24 July 2008