Search
Close this search box.

Selection Criteria and Entry Information

Veterinary Nursing

Studying Veterinary Nursing - course entry

Your application starts here

Our goal is to see students succeed in their animal care career path and to ensure we provide the veterinary industry with high quality, employable graduates. There are two factors we consider when assessing applications for our courses.

Firstly, applicants are required to meet the Compulsory Prerequisite outlined by ASQA (Australian Government) . Secondly we review each applicant based on a combination of individual experience, education, ability and suitability to work with animals. We often refer to this as the AVT Selection Criteria.  Learn more about this below.

Compulsory Prerequisite

To enrol in ACM40418 Certificate IV in Veterinary Nursing, you will be required to have either:

OR

  • Completed a Relevant Animal Science Discipline Course

    You have a relevant Certificate III or higher level qualification in an animal science discipline;

OR

Assessing whether or not you meet the prerequisite for ACM40418 Certificate IV in Vet Nursing is done by a personalised review of each and every applicant. If you feel you don’t meet the prerequisite, we can assist you with one of our unique combination pathways that will fast-track your application so you can get started as soon as possible. Simply contact us for more information.

Information about AVT's selection criteria

Our graduates are sought after by Veterinary Practices throughout Australia. One of the reasons for this is our selection process. Therefore places in the AVT Veterinary Nursing course are highly competitive and limited. This also means applicants are subject to our normal selection process. This involves considering your aptitude for working in the animal care industry. If you are currently employed in a veterinary practice and have the support of your employer to study this qualification, this will be considered favourably.

When selecting students, we also consider two other important criteria as outlined below.

We look for evidence of your ability to study at the Certificate IV level. This may be based on your completion of school or other studies. We do not apply strict rules on what schooling you need to have completed and all students can present evidence of their ability to show equivalency to this level.

It is recommended that you have completed or have equivalent language, literacy and numeracy at a year 12 high school level. Throughout this course, you will be required to read and interpret workplace policy and procedures, technical and medical terminology, perform moderate level calculations and exercise various forms of workplace communications.

For students that do not have evidence of previous studies we may ask you to complete one of our own aptitude assessments that may allow you to demonstrate your ability. These assessments are designed to assess your language, literacy and numeracy skills. We may ask you to take some further background studies if we feel you need extra study experience.

Veterinary nursing can be both a physically and emotionally challenging job at times and requires you to have a certain amount of resilience and maturity due to the nature of the veterinary industry and the type of situations that you will face.

A veterinary nurse’s role involves as much interaction with people as it does with animals. This means excellent communication and customer service abilities are essential. Good interpersonal skills are required to be able to interact with and convey information to clients and other members of the hospital team.

Our selection process will take into consideration the quality of your application as well as how you perform during a formal interview, either face to face, Zoom, Teams or via telephone (if your application reaches this stage). Behavioural, cognitive and interpersonal assessments are used to help us with our selection.

As mentioned above, places are highly competitive and limited.

Preparing your application?

We’ve put together a few tips on how to submit your application for the ACM40418 Certificate IV in Veterinary Nursing at AVT. 

FAQs about meeting the prerequisite

FAQs about demonstrating equivalent skills and knowledge

In order for us to ascertain whether you meet the entry requirement as a result of knowledge and skills you have gained in the workplace, you need to provide evidence which is relevant and current and may include:

  • Relevant work history, whether that be voluntary or employed work (including a description of the workplace, position held, duties undertaken, duration and supervisor details)
  • References from relevant employers and supervisors

We may or may not also need to carry out verbal or written testing of certain subjects/units to help us with the assessment of your application for exemption from completing a Certificate II in Animal Studies/Animal Care (fees may apply).

Additional Considerations

Requirements for our Online students

Places are offered to online students based on the availability of a Veterinary Practice to support your training. If you are not based in WA and not employed in a practice, you are required to locate a practice willing to support you. For prospective students we have developed a workplace kit to assist you.

What happens if you do not meet the criteria?

If we are not able to offer you a place at the time of your application, we will advise you on a plan for the future. This may include an education pathway such as qualifications in animal care or seeking work experience.

Practical training opportunities for animal care
Search