Short courses can be classified into three broad groupings:

• those drawn from national Training Packages within the AQF using competencies or partial competencies
• those drawn from courses given national accreditation by the state accrediting body (e.g. Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority)
• those recognised by the individual Registered Training Organisation: these courses are sometimes referred to as non-accredited or Registered Training Organisation recognised or internally recognised

Typically a vocational education and training short course is:

‘Any course on offer some component of which is fee for service, and that does not, in its own right, provide a whole qualification as part of the Australian Qualifications Framework. Such a course will have been either internally approved, or been accredited through the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority (formerly the Victorian Qualifications Authority), and may or may not be units of competence (that are part of a qualification in the Australian Qualification Framework).’