English language skills

Registration Standards

December 2024

Ahpra and National Boards (except for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Practice Board of Australia) have published advance copies of the revised Registration standards: English Language Skills (the ELS standards). These include:

the Common English language skills standard which applies to all applicants for initial registration in Chinese medicine, chiropractic, dental, medical, medical radiation, occupational therapy, optometry, osteopathy, pharmacy, physiotherapy, podiatry and psychology.

Advance copies of the ELS standards are available on the Ahpra website. Please note that the 2015 ELS standards will remain current until the revised ELS standards come into effect by April 2025. We are focusing on improving the applicant experience and will provide more specific information about when the standard will come into effect in early 2025.

Read the news item for further information about the updates to the ELS standard and what you need to know about any changes before they come into effect.

Registration standard

Registration standards define the requirements that applicants or registrants need to meet to be registered.

Document name	PDF	Accessible format	Date of effect
Registration standard: English language skills	PDF (375KB)	Word version (577KB,DOCX)	1 July 2015

Further information

The following additional documents have been developed to supplement the registration standard by providing further information to optometrists regarding the Optometry Board’s expectations and requirements. These documents should be read in conjunction with the standard.

Document name	PDF	Accessible format	Document date
FAQ - find out more about the standards	PDF (197KB)	Web page	August 2015

Do you meet the English language standards skills?

The new standard introduces additional pathways for applicants to demonstrate evidence of their English language skills. Diagrams of how these work are included in the English language skills pathways document listed below.

Document name	PDF	Accessible format	Document date
English language skills pathway	PDF (104KB)	Word version (569 KB,DOCX)	July 2015
Information for applicants: How to provide evidence of your English language skills	PDF (268KB)	Word version (799KB,DOCX)	August 2015

Approved English language test providers

If you are required to sit an English language test, please refer to either of the following approved provider's websites for more information:

International English Language Testing System - (IELTS)
Occupational English test - OET
Test of English as a foreign language internet-based test - TOEFL iBT
Pearson test of English academic - PTE Academic

Consultation process for the English language skills standard

These new standards were developed after a review of the existing standards, which included a public consultation. The consultation report provides a summary of responses, rationale for any changes and sets out the proposed way forward, including areas where further work in planned. The report, as well as the letter from Ministerial Council approving the new standards is available on the AHPRA website.

Retired version

The previous version of the registration standard is no longer in effect.

Document name	PDF	Date of effect
Retired version: English language skills registration standard	PDF (328KB)	1 July 2010 to 30 June 2015

Note: If a practitioner is selected for audit, they will be audited against the registration standard that was in effect during the audit period, or as otherwise specified. For more information on audits refer to the audit page.