Why we’re making this change

From 2027 onwards, the Department of Education (DE) is updating the Priority of Access (POA) rules. Previously, eligibility was calculated based only on the child’s information. Now, certain parent or guardian attributes will also contribute to a child’s priority for access.

This means that to calculate POA accurately, we need to capture some additional information about a child’s parents or guardians.

What’s changing

We’ve added new parent/guardian fields that will feed directly into the POA calculations. These include eligibility details for cards, medical needs and support programs.

The new fields are:

• Health Care Card

  • Card type, number and expiry date

• Pensioner Concession Card

  • Card type, number and expiry date

• DVA Card

  • Card type, number and expiry date

Note: Concession cards do not need to have an expiry date or number for a child to be marked as TY/NY - Priority of Access. However, if an expiry date is present - it needs to be valid (tomorrow onwards).

• NDIS

  • Eligibility and reference number

• Complex Medical Needs

  • Whether the parent has complex medical needs with supporting documentation

Note: Complex Medical Needs is not included in the automatic DE Eligibility Function. Instead, services can manually update the Disability/Complex Medical Needs Approved? field. If this field is ticked, the child will be marked as TY/NY – Priority of Access. This approach gives you the flexibility to prioritise a child accurately based on the details and supporting information provided about a parent’s complex medical needs.

These fields are linked to the Parents/Guardians record and updates here will automatically contribute to the child’s Priority of Access calculation (except for Complex Medical Needs, which is manual as detailed above).

Form mapping: All of these parent/guardian fields can be mapped directly from your forms, making it easy to capture information and keep records up to date. These fields are linked to the Parents/Guardians record and updates here will automatically contribute to the child’s Priority of Access calculation.

What this means for you

• More complete POA calculations: Both child and parent attributes are now considered, giving a full picture of eligibility.

• Less manual work: Entering parent eligibility information once will update the child’s access status automatically.

• Faster and more accurate updates: Any changes to parent information immediately flow into the system, reducing errors and inconsistencies.

How it works behind the scenes

Our centralised DE Eligibility Function now includes parent/guardian attributes alongside the child’s information. The system automatically calculates Priority of Access for both This Year (TY) and Next Year (NY) based on:

• Child eligibility

• Parent eligibility (new)

All logic follows the official Department of Education criteria. By incorporating parent attributes, the system ensures the calculations remain accurate, consistent, and easy to maintain.

How to use the new fields

• Update parent/guardian records with the new fields where relevant.

• The DE Eligibility Function will automatically factor this information into POA calculations.

• You can still view all eligibility results in the DE Eligibility (auto calculated) section, now reflecting both child and parent data.