Assessing satisfactory progress and allowable time for tertiary students for Pensioner Education Supplement (PES) 010-05110050

Is the Service Officer skilled in PES processing?

• Yes, go to Step 2
• No:
• record the details in a Fast Note - select Auto Text, use Students, ABSTUDY & Apprentices > Pensioner Education Supplement > PES Study
• update Action DOC
• procedure ends here

Has the tertiary student undertaken previous study in their current course or in another course at the same tertiary level?

• Yes, go to Step 3
• No, satisfactory progress is met. Go to Step 10

Students are asked to provide study details in the online claim. View the Claim Overview in Process Direct to determine allowable time.

Calculate the allowable time accurately. If there are insufficient details in the online claim or from the customer's record:

• manually request academic transcripts (an official academic record or transcript is preferred)
• request a statement from the student in very simple cases

When calculating the amount of time spent studying at the same tertiary level as the current course, the method of calculation depends on whether the student:

• is currently a full-time 25% or 66% concessional study load student, and
• was a part-time, full-time, 25% or 66% concessional study load student, when the previous study was undertaken

See Measuring time spent for tertiary student's attachment on the Resources page:

• look only at study at the same tertiary level as the current course
• completed courses count as the lesser of minimum time or the actual time it took to complete the course
• divide other study into its academic periods (for example, semesters, years). Most courses are divided into periods of study. In these cases, consider each period separately. Where the course is not divided, consider as a whole. See Determining allowable time/reasonable time for a course of study
• determine if any of this study can be disregarded
• for current full-time and 66% concessional study load students assess each remaining period separately to determine what percentage of a full year's study it represents
• check if any study load concessions (25% or 66%) applied for any of the previous study. Note if the student is granted a 25% study load concession for the current study or was granted a concession for any of the previous study. See the Resources page
• where study load aggregation has previously been applied to satisfy full-time study requirements, count all study periods included in the aggregation assessment as full-time
• total the academic period percentages by adding together each individual period of study to give the total amount of study undertaken
• for help with calculating complex assessments of allowable time for PES customers, contact a PES Local Peer Support (LPS)

For example, a student who has undertaken 3 part-time semesters of study (25% of a full year's study load each) and a full-time semester (50%). This totals 125% or the equivalent of one and a quarter years of full-time study.

Determine the allowable time for the student's current course and compare the total study (as calculated in Step 2) with the allowable time.

If the total previous study is:

• less than or equal to the allowable time:
• the customer is making satisfactory progress
• the result of the calculation at Step 3 indicates how much longer the customer could expect payments to continue in their current course, note the amount of allowable time the customer has remaining
• go to Step 6
• greater than the allowable time, go to Step 5

As the total previous study is greater than the allowable time, the student has already exceeded allowable time. PES cannot be paid for any more study in this course.

PES may be payable, however, for a short period of a longer course at the same level or for a course at a different level.

Where the student does not meet the satisfactory progress rules, update their record needs. If the student is

• claiming PES, reject the claim. Procedure ends here
• currently receiving payment, use the procedure Determining allowable time/reasonable time for a course of study to determine the date to key in the Allowable Time End Date field

In Process Direct:

• go to the Customer Study Details (EDC) screen
• select Edit next to the course detail
• on the Change Education Details screen, update the Allowable Time End Date field > Save
• complete the Receipt Date and Channel > Save

In Customer First:

• go to the Education Course Details (EDC) screen
• key the date in the Allowable Time End Date field
• check the Comments field and ensure only the exact name of the course in which the student is enrolled is recorded. Note: do not leave this field blank and do not include any other text other than the course as these details will be displayed to customers when using the 'Manage study details' online service
• in the Source field, key the source details
• in the Receipt Date field, key the day the customer provided the information
• go to the Action field, select 'CHG' or key 'C' to update the details recorded

Note: completing this action will auto-cancel the customer's payment and issue a letter telling the customer of the cancellation.

Identify if the customer is eligible for any other income support or products.

Go to Step 10.

Use the procedure Determining allowable time/reasonable time for a course of study to determine if the Allowable Time End Date field should be coded. This field is located in:

• Process Direct, on the Customer Study Details (EDC) screen
• Customer First, on the Education Course Details (EDC) screen

Will the customer reach their allowable time end date before reaching their current course or student end date?

• Yes, to update the Allowable Time End Date field:
• in Process Direct, go to Step 7
• in Customer First, go to Step 8
• No:
• the Allowable Time End Date field does not need to be coded
• record the findings on a DOC including details of allowable time calculations made
• procedure ends here

Go to the EDC screen:

• select Edit next to the course detail
• on the Change Education Details screen, update the Allowable Time End Date field. Note: the result of the calculation at Step 4 indicates when the customer will reach their allowable time, key this date in the Allowable Time End Date field > Save
• complete the Receipt Date and Channel > Save
• select Assess and address and errors/warnings
• select Assess > Finish. Record details of the update
• select Finalise to complete the transaction

Go to Step 9

Go to the EDC screen:

• the result of the calculation at Step 4 indicates when the customer will reach their allowable time, key this date in the Allowable Time End Date field
• check the Comments field and ensure only the exact name of the course in which the student is enrolled is recorded. Note: do not leave this field blank and do not include any other text other than the course as these details will be displayed to customers when using the 'Manage study details' online service
• in the Source field, key the source details
• in the Receipt Date field, key the day the customer provided the details
• go to the Action field, select 'CHG' or key 'C' to update the details recorded on the existing EDC entry

As the customer's PES will cancel in the future as a result of the allowable time coding, they must be told about this in writing. Issue a Q888 letter and include the following approved wording in the free text paragraph:

• 'Following an assessment of your allowable time based on previous studies undertaken at the same level as the course you are doing now, it has been determined we can pay you Pensioner Education Supplement until XXXX. Your Pensioner Education Supplement will cancel on XXXX because you will have exceeded the maximum time allowed for your course.'

To record the decision:

• use Fast Note - select Auto Text, use Students, ABSTUDY & Apprentices > Update > Allowable Time Assessment, or
• in the Search field, key Allowable:
• select Allowable Time Assessment from the search results
• select the Display on Access (DOA) DOC button (if not already ticked). This automatically populates the DOA DOC field with the correct reason of 'SCC', which does not require an expiration date. See Creating, reviewing and deleting documents (including Fast Notes and DOA DOCs)

Make sure the DOC includes:

• the name, academic level and allowable time of the student's current course
• a summary of the student's previous study, semester by semester (including all other levels of study if this is available. Although it will not be counted in this assessment, it may be useful if the student applies for another course under another payment type)
• details of any study that has been disregarded and the reasons for disregarding the study
• the total of the previous study, and
• the period of payability (if any) that still remains