FNTP graduates who previously received a certification prior to 2020 can now upgrade to Diploma status. This qualification is recognized in Australia by the Australian Committee of Complementary Therapies for TGA Practitioner status. International Graduates are required to enquire with relevant professional accrediting bodies with their country as to whether this qualification will be recognized.
What is Involved in the Upgrade?
Diploma upgrade will involve current curriculum review and course work to catch-up certification students to the current 1200 contact hour requirement. Clinical hours requirements are dependent on graduating year and location.
Upgraders should expect to contribute 10-15 hours of course work and zoom call attendance per week when completing the upgrade as a Course Mentor.
If you do not wish to be a course mentor whilst doing your upgrade, you can re-enroll as a student at a reduced re-entry fee of $4950 AUD. This fee can broken into a payment plan if required. Should you wish to re-enroll please advise our team which class you wish to enroll in and we will provide you the appropriate enrolment forms.
When do I have to complete it by?
The final classes to complete your upgrade in will be February 2023. The NTA curriculum is being redesigned for the later 2023 academic year, which may change all the requirements to complete an upgrade. All graduates who are partially completed, or had thought they will return to finish next year - now is that time. Due to the coming changes, we are unable to offer the upgrade option for any classes beyond February 2023. This will also mean transferring to a later class to complete your diploma will be unavailable.
How do I apply to Upgrade?
To apply for an upgrade, you need to email NTA Australia with the details of when you graduated and from which class advising of your request to do the Diploma upgrade.
The upgrade assessment process incurs an Administration fee of $85.00 AUD plus an additional shipping fee if you require a hard copy Diploma. In applying, please also indicate your current mailing address if you are wanting a hard copy diploma. Following your reply, our team will send you through an invoice for the Admin fee for the assessment and to start the process. You will get a link to pay this online.
Once we receive your payment we will review your grade book and assess which additional modules and/or content you would be required to complete to attain the standards required for the Diploma qualification. You will be provided with the following details:
- Number of outstanding hours including any updated FCA hours required (if relevant)
- Required modules to be completed
- Process to completion and assessment.
You will be provided with a complete breakdown of this information and options available to you for completing this upgrade.
Every graduate is being individually assessed so once payment has been completed we will pull your grade books and begin the assessment. You can expect to hear back from our team within 3 business days.
Diploma FAQ's
Wow this is more than I thought it would be?
As there have been updates across all core curriculum modules and there are now client consultation videos for every module, yes it’s a considerable upgrade. However, we are actually not asking you to do every assignment that a student does - you are not required to do Original Content assignments, term reading assignments, Community Outreach, Capstone Project presentations, quizzes, exams or Additional Reading Assignments that are expected of current classes.
We understand it seems like a lot but there has been significant updates and as the Diploma status now will qualify our graduates as health Professionals it means they will be open to audits and follow ups from the Office of the Health Ombudsman should they ever receive a client complaint, therefore this is to protect our graduates as well as the organizations that have qualified you for the Diploma and TGA status.
In order to provide you with a transcript that reflects you have achieved the requirements of our current level of training that is now recognized for Diploma status we do need to have some proof that you have reviewed all the changes. We believe you will find, because of your post graduate experience this will be far easier than it is for our students.
I have significant commitments this year I’m concerned about my ability to complete this level of study - is there a deadline?
You may continue to work on this across an entire class cycle and should you need to continue across one more class cycle we would be happy to accommodate. Should you wish to defer the upgrade for now, you may revisit this at another time however we are unable to guarantee that there may not be further revisions and updates to the curriculum that you may need to be assessed for.
What if I am unable to be a Course Mentor?
Your options would be to either defer (see above) or apply for a limited re-enrollment to complete the upgrade. Please note limited re-enrollments will incur a reduced re-entry fee of $4950 AUD, which can be broken into a payment plan if required.
I’m really rusty and I’m nervous about Course Mentoring?
We have made significant changes to the Group Leader (now Course Mentor) role since you were a student. Students are now paired with Course Mentors throughout the program instead of other students and they work through various aspects together - learning together. It’s been really wonderful and we’ve had great feedback from both students and course mentors.
Covid has really forced us to think outside of the box this year and we have overhauled workshops as a result. We teach all theory, demo -ing and audible instruction online and get everyone to start their practice before workshop. This has allowed us to really reduce the load and make workshops more like relaxed practice sessions. Based on whatever restrictions are happening at the time we have either created smaller regional groups, one in one sessions or virtual oversight sessions and because of the prep work the students are actually learning faster than the old method.
We have provided all classrooms tentative initial workshop dates but with various restrictions in place, we plan to be flexible and meet the needs of everyone involved so we expect dates to alter slightly and also reduce in length.
For any additional questions or to apply for your Diploma upgrade please email the NTA Australia team here.
