TAFE Directors Australia enters strategic partnership with My eQuals
TAFE Directors Australia (TDA), HES and Digitary by Parchment are excited to announce a strategic partnership that will help enable TAFEs to join or extend their involvement with the My eQuals community.
My eQuals is the official tertiary credentials platform across Australia and New Zealand. My eQuals is a secure and easy to use platform for education providers, learners and verifiers to certify, issue, view and share official verified credentials and awards online. TDA sees strong benefits through TAFE representation in the evolution of official digital tertiary credentials across Australia.
My eQuals originated as a collaboration by the Heads of Student Administration of the 47 Australian and New Zealand public universities, aimed at digitisation of student data to enable more seamless global learner mobility. My eQuals was successfully implemented across all the universities from 2017, enabling every student and graduate to access anytime, anywhere, their official credential records via My eQuals and share their verified credentials to validate educational outcomes.
My eQuals is governed and operated by the sector and for the sector, enabling students to unify all of their awarded credentials from multiple providers into one My eQuals account that they can securely manage.
Over 50% of TDA members have joined My eQuals, beginning with Canberra Institute of Technology in 2020, and more recently, Holmesglen, Chisholm and Melbourne Polytechnic. TAFE and dual-sector universities have been issuing official credentials and awards such as Testamurs, Transcripts, Statement of Results, Statement of Attainments, Certificates, Digital Badges and Official Letters.
More than 2 million learners have now created and registered My eQuals accounts and over 8 million digital credentials records have been awarded. Benefits include increased student mobility, transformed student experience, reduction in document fraud, improved integrity and security of credentials, and improved operational practices and cost reductions for TAFEs and universities.
With the recent establishment of the Australian Universities Accord and the championing TDA is making towards the connection between VET and HE, initiatives such as My eQuals helps to bridge that intersection and provides a valuable sector mutually advantageous solution.
Daniel Hibbert, Director, APAC, Digitary by Parchment said the technology is enabling more academic credentials to be recognised and continually evolving with technological trends to empower learners to control and present their earned credentials with trust.
“The Digitary by Parchment technology is utilised around the world by education providers in higher education, vocational education and throughout K-12 schools for the secure provisioning of digitally certified credentials and awards. We’ve always seen the natural evolution of My eQuals in Australia and New Zealand to extend to the VET sector and are confident the product roadmap will extend benefits around Verifiable Credentials (VCs), student experience and ensure credential integrity.”
Jay Segeth, My eQuals Program Director, HES said the partnership with TDA marks the next chapter of sector collaboration.
“My eQuals expansion beyond the universities to TAFE, RTOs and independent HE providers and our new connection with TDA, we believe will further strengthen the My eQuals community and improve learner mobility outcomes across the Australian Tertiary Education system. I look forward to working with TDA and its members to evolve My eQuals for the benefit of all parties. What started as an initiative from the universities has set an international benchmark for sector collaboration.”
TDA CEO Jenny Dodd said that as Australia explores better VET-higher education collaboration, digitised credentials will be a key enabler.
“TDA is delighted to support progress that will benefit students in an increasingly digitised world so they can access their digital vocational and higher education credentials in one place. TDA is pleased to provide an avenue that will focus on TAFE and how TAFEs want to improve this technology for the benefit of students.”
About TDA
TAFE Directors Australia is the peak national body representing 29 TAFE institutes, including six dual sector universities with TAFE divisions and nine TAFEs that are also non-university higher education providers.
About My eQuals
My eQuals is the official tertiary credentials digital platform for the higher education sector, students, and verifiers. It is a Pan-Pacific solution providing easy, secure access to certified, official qualification records for Australian and New Zealand universities and their learners. For further details visit: www.myequals.edu.au
About Digitary by Parchment
Digitary was launched in Dublin, Ireland in 2005, and now part of the Parchment group of companies, has grown to become the leading online platform for certifying, sharing, and verifying academic credentials. Learner-centric since the very start, Digitary by Parchment enables millions of learners to access their verified achievements and to share them with others securely, quickly, and easily. Digitary by Parchment is now used by organisations in over 135 countries. For further details visit: www.digitary.net
About HES
Formerly known as Higher Ed Services, HES is the managing entity of My eQuals. HES is a not-for-profit organisation owned by and working for the Australian higher education sector. We create value for the sector by bringing people, ideas and higher education institutions together so they can achieve better outcomes and realise benefits beyond their individual capacity. For further details visit: www.hes.edu.au
Media contacts
TDA, Bob Bowden, 0412 753 298 or bbowden@bowmac.com.au,
Digitary by Parchment Representative - Marni MacGil marni.macgilp@digitary.net
HES Representative - Karen Hanna khanna@hes.edu.au