Eligibility and requirements
There are specific requirements governing school-based apprenticeships and traineeships (SATs).
They affect everyone involved in the partnership – students, parents and guardians, schools, training providers and employers.
Students
High school students must be in Year 10, 11 or 12. School-based apprentices in electrotechnology must be in Year 11 or 12.
Apprenticeships and traineeships can start before Year 10, but this requires a special business case. Contact Apprenticeships Info before commencing.
Learn more about:
Students must have:
- support from their school
- permission from their parent or guardian, if under 18.
Students living independently don't need permission from parents or guardians.
Students must be enrolled and/or registered in Years 10 to 12.
This includes students at state, catholic and independent schools, as well as distance education and home-schooled students.
Suspended students can still attend work and training.
To continue their apprenticeship or traineeship, excluded students must re-enrol at another school and have the new school's support to continue with the school-based arrangement.
Read more about being suspended or excluded from school.
There is a limit to the amount of training that school-based apprentices can do while they are at school. These limits ensure the apprentice has enough workplace skills to match the theoretical training they have undertaken with their training provider.
Learn more about these training limits for apprentices.
School-based apprenticeships and traineeships may be funded by the Queensland Government. Learn more about training costs.
Schools
Students must have their school's support to begin a SAT; not all schools support SATs.
If a school does not support a SAT, students may consider undertaking the training through a fee-for-service arrangement (paid by the student) with an external registered training organisation (RTO). This option allows students to complete the training without using their government-funded entitlement under VETiS 2026, preserving their eligibility for future subsidised training after school.
Read about school-based versus part-time apprenticeships and traineeships.
Work and training must impact a student's school timetable in some way.
This can be achieved by either:
- working during school hours
- training during school hours.
Some students drop a subject(s) to allow time for work and/or training to occur during school hours.
Read more about requirements for the school, work and training timetable.
Employers
Employers must:
- provide at least 7.5 hours of paid work per week, averaged over every 3 months, for every 12 months of your training contract
- provide at least 375 hours/50 days of paid employment (or 600 hours/80 days in electrotechnology industry) for every 12 months of your training contract
- pay you for work, and possibly for time spent training with your training providers (depends on the industrial award or agreement which you are paid under).
Find out more about working hours.